Six Nations 2012: England have made progress, but coach Stuart Lancaster still has to make his case I talked to the players on Tuesday about connection between each other and extending that connection out to other people. The connection that the crowd and the English public feel about the team is probably the most pleasing thing so far, which is quite some way removed from winning scrums and line-outs and how you attack. But I also recognise it's a results-based business. The sting is in the tail here. Full marks to Lancaster for reattaching the umbilical chord between the team and its public after the World Cup. But if he thinks anyone will care that the squad volunteer to coach schoolkids in their time off if England lose against France and Ireland, then he is seriously deluded. Even those schoolkids won't give a monkey's. The feel-good factor is relevant to Test rugby, but that comes from victories. You need to be right and successful, not nice. The importance of leadership I think there have been some big decisions made on selection [Owen Farrell instead of Toby Flood, Geoff Parling for Tom Palmer, Lee Dickson for Ben Youngs, addressing the midfield malaise], and on disciplinary measures [excluding Danny Care and Delon Armitage following brushes with the law]. Perhaps I don't put myself at the front all the time. The role is part-coaching, part-management, part-leadership, and the best leaders I've seen operate know when to be the leader and, equally, when to be the manager. A tricky one this. At Twickenham last Saturday I met up with a man who knew Lancaster well and who insisted that he was a "classroom coach," that he hid behind his assistants and that, far too collaborative and consensus driven, he had difficulty fronting the operation. Lancaster himself acknowledged that "a lot of the detail is done by Andy Farrell and Graham Rowntree," but, that said, it would be hugely mean-spirited, and wrong, to argue that Lancaster hasn't led the England revival. Emotional intelligence Leadership involves a whole range of competencies such as emotional intelligence - knowing when to put your arm around the shoulder and when to crack the whip. Much has been made of Lancaster's bond with his players. Getting parents, siblings and friends of squad members to articulate what it means to them to have that individual playing for England and framing those comments in a plaque was extraordinarily astute and touching. Chris Robshaw reads his in his room the night before he leads his country into battle, and that sense of team has been behind impressive defensive efforts. But there have been some notable failures where the Lancaster magic hasn't worked. Ben Youngs and Chris Ashton have looked lost souls, seriously off form and out of touch with what's going on, and even Ben Foden is not functioning anywhere near his best. On that basis Lancaster still has to demonstrate he can fire and inspire a team. The rugby What do I know now that I didn't know? I've learned that you get very few opportunities to build pressure and build intensity in your attacking framework so when you do get them you have to take them. If you get a line-out in the opposition 22 it's pretty important to get some set piece going because you're only in there four or five times in a half. From a personal point of view, I've been quite pleased that I've gone into my coaching mode and have not allowed the intensity of the occasion to get the better of me. I've felt I've been able to coach. Here we get to the guts of whether Lancaster should get the job. Performance and results. His understanding of the inherent difficulties are no different from Johnson's, or any other international coach's for that matter. Lancaster's weakness is, like Johnson, that, for all the effort and energy, his England struggle to create tries. Execution is still poor and were it not for Charlie Hodgson's opportunism, England could well be tryless three games into the Six Nations. Lancaster's only defence here is that he has had three months to find solutions whereas Johnson had three years. The other fundamental flaw, as with Johnson's regime, is that discipline remains an issue. Against Wales, significantly stronger opposition than England's first two opponents, the penalty count crept up from nine against Scotland and Italy to hit a worrying 13. As for the fact that Lancaster feels he has "been able to coach." The positive consequences from bringing Ben Morgan and Lee Dickson off the bench against Italy in Rome were offset by the disastrous contributions of Courtney Lawes, Ben Youngs and Matt Stevens when they were introduced against Wales. It's up to you where you stand on that one. The verdict Lancaster's fate has to rest on the next two games. Victories against France and Ireland and the job is his. But lose one of those, and it doesn't matter which, and the capability of the other candidates becomes an issue because, as of this morning, impressive and nice as he is in so many ways, Lancaster still has a case to make as the man who will get England climbing back up the international rankings.