How Sheriff Ian Ritchie brought peace to the RFU A non-specialist background, commonly assumed to be a handicap in governing bodies, turned out to be an advantage, as he recalls: "Even before I arrived, people said: "And you're picking the head coach." Some bloke from tennis, and the first thing someone says is you're going to pick the head coach. I thought, how am I going to do this then? They said there's an advisory panel. And wow what an advisory panel. Ian McGeechan, Conor O'Shea, Richard Hill, Rob Andrew. I remember going to the first meeting and thinking I'm a fan, and there are some serious rugby people here. I thought, this'll be good, I'd better sit and listen to this. They'll be talking about highly technical matters that I'm not going to get. Actually for the first hour all they talked about was the management of a group of players. I could understand it. Interviewing all the people it was clear that Stuart was really impressive. He's been very clear, straightforward and transparent ever since he was appointed. Almost the embodiment of what you want to get here [at the RFU] was in Stuart at the interview process. "People asked, "Why did you go through such a formal process?" Some people said it was the first time the interview process was interview panels, psychometric tests, one-to-one discussions. I saw it as no different to any senior executive recruitment. I said to some of the guys: do we want to psychometric test people? And they said, "Well, we do it all the time." "I rang Nick Mallett, who was a fantastically impressive candidate, and said, "Look, you've not got this." His reaction was, "I'd just like to say how much I enjoyed the process, how much I was given every opportunity, a chance to put my best foot forward."" The Lancaster appointment, despite the winter's Six Nations thrashing in Cardiff, is Ritchie's defining move so far. He is in Argentina this weekend to see England take on the home country on their summer tour. Before he left he set out in his first major interview both the aims for England and the RFU's wider aims. England first: "The culture is clear, the team are very supportive, they've been excellent role models. That element has been comprehensively dealt with. Sitting in Cardiff was not a pleasant experience as an England supporter. But you have to recognise you're going to lose sometimes. We still won eight out of the last 10 in the Six Nations. I've sat in a Wimbledon locker and watched people lose: Andy Roddick, 14-12 in the fifth set. The only time he lost his serve was when he lost the match. How do you deal with winning and losing? How do we deal with losing in Cardiff? The really great teams will go on and deal with that. It's not suddenly that everything is wondrous when we beat New Zealand. It wasn't long after the Australia game when everyone was saying we're not every good. You have to look at the underlying approach, underlying feeling. I was brought up in Leeds in the 1960s and 70s. The first years [with Leeds United Football Club, a love of his] were all about winning. You have to compete, then you can move into can you entertain? The margins in true world-class sport are pretty small. I've watched five or six-hour tennis matches and can point to three or four points in their third set that swung the entire match. I think what people really want is a team they can support. Is there a connection? Do they get it? Do they feel loyal? I think Stuart Lancaster and the current team is a thing people want to support. They want to win and they identify with them. I don't think that's an accidental thing. Why wouldn't we have all the England coaches going to talk to 350 community coaches? Why wouldn't we have the England kit launch at Drybook in Gloucestershire rather than Twickenham? Why wouldn't we have 6,500 kids at Leeds watch England train on a Friday morning? At the nerve centre this former barrister and Oxford graduate is keen on "culture and values." He says: "In the second week I was here I ended up just outside Chesterfield. I was walking about and this man comes up to me and says, "Are you from the RFU"? This is going to be interesting, I thought. "Well, come with me," he said. And he dragged me down the dressing-room corridor and pointed to the rugby values on the notice board and said, "That's why my eight-year-old is playing rugby." It was really salutary stuff. You should have a thread all the way through from what the England team do - because they are the ultimate ambassadors - to what is happening at mini rugby on a Sunday morning. You've got to join it all together. It's the respect, it's the enjoyment, it's the discipline. Ritchie organised a VIP gathering of England's leaders to deepen his knowledge of the game: "I thought it was a nice idea to invite some former England captains to a private dinner, and I was sitting there thinking this is like a schoolboy auction prize. It was just great. It was a bit like a training course in rugby for me. He is proud, meanwhile, of the standards England now set: "The feedback is that there's probably the best relationship there's ever been between the England set-up and the Premier league clubs. If Chris Robshaw goes back to Conor O'Shea [at Harlequins] and says, "I've just been with a load of numpties who don't know what they're doing and my training has been horrendous and I don't feel motivated" then we're not going to have a good relationship." The 2015 Rugby World Cup is the RFU's employment magnet: "The beauty of the Rugby World Cup is it's one sport. We have an opportunity to be pre-emptive. We would be rightly criticised if we didn't invest now for an upturn. The biggest single legacy isn't making money, though I hope it will. It's a lasting legacy for rugby. We're never going to get a better chance to really, really lift the game. I think that's what enthuses the [former] Locog executives. It's got to be more than just the 44 days of the event. Talking of "the event," there are those who say the Twickenham match day experience has become too noisy and overwrought. "Obviously I get letters and notes," he smiles. "If you compare the notes I get that say "I don't like all the hoopla," the market research says "We rather like it." I find it directly analogous with Wimbledon. You've got a traditional group of people who think a sporting event shouldn't change and a group of people who want to modernise. In the seven years I was at Wimbledon we had the roof and Hawk-Eye and other things that changed. But hopefully you don't alter the fundamentals. As a sporting occasion Cardiff, for Wales v England, was unbelievable. If you've got 82,000 people who are wound up and prepared to sing, do you really need crashing rock music to encourage them? If you had 25,000 you might do it to create an atmosphere. You want people to be there before and after. You want them to make a day of it, like the NFL. You want them to feel it's a great day out. His enthusiasm is spreading across Twickenham and beyond. "I worked for the engineering employers" federation for a bit," he says. "and if you worked in a foundry in Halifax with buckets of molten metal going over your head you'd say that working in rugby is something that should be inspirational and enjoyable." Ritchie on... Stuart Lancaster He has been straightforward, very clear and transparent ever since he was appointed - the embodiment of what you want to get here at the RFU. Being thrashed by Wales How do we deal with losing in Cardiff? You have to look at the underlying feeling. The Rugby World Cup The biggest single legacy isn't making money, though I hope it will. It's a lasting legacy. We're not going to get a better chance to really lift the game. The Twickenham experience You want people to be there before and after.