Geoff Parling has told England’s next head coach that he will inherit a side with good foundations and a lot of talent despite their disappointing Rugby World Cup campaign.
Parling started in all of the Red Rose’s World Cup matches as the tournament ended in frustrating fashion at the pool stage.
Stuart Lancaster has since departed his role as head coach but the lock – who has appeared in the RBS 6 Nations on 12 occasions – has told Lancaster’s replacement there are reasons to be optimistic.
“He (Lancaster) put a lot of good things in place, a lot of foundations,” Parling told the BBC.
“There’s a hell of a lot of talent around and whoever comes in is going to inherit a good group of players that play in a very competitive league every week.”
While Parling was positive about the future of English rugby, the 32-year-old acknowledged he is still struggling to come to terms with the poor World Cup campaign.
“I can’t tell you how disappointed I am, it’s something that will stay with me in some way almost forever and I still think about it quite a lot – a home World Cup, I’m certainly never going to experience that again as a player,” he added.
“Out of all the stuff that comes out afterwards, the thing that I’ve been thinking about is what more could I have done?
“A lot of the stuff that people are looking for, for outside reasons, weren’t actually there. We just weren’t good enough on the rugby pitch and I think as players we’ll be thinking, and we have thought, about what more could be done.”
Click here for the 2016 RBS 6 Nations fixture list
