I know it’s daft… but just for the fun of it. Imagine there was some real intellectual weight to those impulses racing round. Imagine you really could make rilly valid points maaan by flicking that switch between footie and rugby realities. Relax; we’re all doing it but only some of us are daft enough to come out.

Hmmm. Hodgson and Lancaster. The one looking last night like a faintly doddering gramps on’t beach, wi’ t bucket an’ spaaaade, ‘n baggie shorts, like. T’other – despite Northern roots – a brightly forward-thinking member (arguably leader) of some new, bold, expansivist tendency, reassuringly or perhaps worryingly word-perfect but plainly succeeding with his revolution towards enlightenment. How the FA could do with er… a swap.

But we know it doesn’t work like that. Stuart’s upward curve, his Smooth Operation is his own – and England rugby’s own. His fondness for setting out both cultural and chronological stepping stones and then (blow me!) stepping neatly over and through them appears not so much justified as brilliantly engineered. His team have gone from dullards to committed dazzlers in no time. Where there was Johnson’s monstrous intransigence there is now hard-earned fizz and buzz – or at least the potential for that. They are dynamic. Rugby England has become a fifteen man game again.

Roy meanwhile appears to be stuck in what feels like the usual quicksand. Players subsumed beneath too much ‘responsibility’ and maybe simply too much fear. Players who can play not playing through… what? Fear that minnows like Honduras might score. Fear of the expectation that goes with being England – even when there is a generational low in that expectation – because England have been so shocking at tournament football for so long?

What IS this thing that so debilitates the whites of Ingerland – the footie whites?
Part of it must surely be lack of inspiration. Roy plainly does not motivate the group; certainly not in the sense of freeing them up. If England do go on to prosper in Brazil, it seems more likely to have been down to an individual moment of brilliance than through general, spring-in-the-stepness. England look dull and often downright wobbly.

Last night’s weirdly storm-affected game was, despite what FA staffers may say, a failure and a waste. The momentum again drifted or went backwards, because England were sloppy and yes, dull. Forwards notably simply often unable to control balls pinged at them; Hart back into that unconfident loop. Wilshere (despite really needing a performance) was infuriatingly close to pitifully wasteful and Rooney unconvincing at best; Sturridge just literally off-target. This week’s golden boy Barkley epitomised something of the oppressed state of things by being almost completely absent, despite playing 10 for half an hour against a poor side, down one man.

As a team England looked short of will, ingenuity, energy. Most of the second period they were what us over-educated scribes term ‘shite’. Rubbish. Against a side who looked largely Sunday League and who lost a bloke after 60-odd minutes. Much of this falls at Hodgson’s door.

In the moment of opportunity, with a team that is known to be limited but which has pace and brightness amongst its cohort, Roy has and will look for steadiness – Wellbeck not Sterling. He will counsel Baines against really ‘bombing on’ – playing his natural role, the one that got him picked – and thereby compound the sense that there’s little chance of breaking out. Just in case they (England) come a cropper. That narrowness, that lack of generosity towards fans, players and the game has been a central flaw in England footie’s approach for years.

I am fascinated by the importance of belief, in sport, as anyone who has read my blogs will have realised. My strong suspicion is that even at the very highest level the role of the coach is massive. This is NOT, I swear, because I happen to be a coach, it’s more about experiences through playing sport at decent (admittedly not elite) level.

The coach needs to be the spark as well as the strategist. It’s not enough to sort team shape. Players need inspiration – license. They need to believe in you the coach and to be liberated not enchained within the system. This is about relations, then, deeply personal stuff. Or rather it perhaps demands an (intuitive?) understanding of personalities – and the ability to touch differing individuals – to get to people. Most of us have been in dressing rooms where nobody listened to the coach, because he/she didn’t have us under that spell. It’s a deeply unsatisfactory experience. But the sharp, communal buzz that comes from maybe just a few words from a coach who is respected (or often loved?) is real sporting magic. Transformative; inspiring; precious.

Stuart Lancaster I have doubted and I still have concerns about his capacity to whole-heartedly inspire. But he is light years ahead of Hodgson in terms of what he has delivered and what he offers. England rugby is/are contenders. They are also entertainers, remarkably transformed when we look at a) their playing style b) selections c) their capacity to gamble.

Lancaster has been bold enough not only to use words like vision with a straight face but to enact change, to step or gambol towards that aspiration. That target is to establish a dynamic and structured and generous (i.e. open, diverse) playing style – that has the guile, power and responsiveness to beat great teams. The England rugby coach doesn’t think conservatism can win him the World Cup but that this new model might. Not only is he right, he deserves to be right.

Defenders of Mr Hodgson might argue that Lancaster has the resources – the players – to go the braver route. And that the footie man doesn’t. In fact I think Hodgson, in the absence of great players has been gifted an extraordinary opportunity. We all know his young fliers are flawed but just how well-equipped are we to play that allegedly mature international cat-and-mouse thing? Far better to say bugger it and let Barkley, Sterling and Sturridge go play. So do it Roy.