After winning the RBS 6 Nations Championship three times in four years at the turn of the century, England have only captured the trophy once in the last nine tournaments while they crashed out of the 2011 World Cup at the quarter-final stage.

In response RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie has commission McGeechan, who has coached the Lions on five separate occasions, to team up with Peter Keen, the former UK Sport performance director whose work underpinned a lot of the success enjoy by Great Britain at the London 2012 Olympics.

And given their vast history of success, Ritchie believes he could not have appointed two better individuals to cast their eyes to examine the inner workings of Twickenham.  

“I’m delighted we’ve got two outstanding individuals involved and this is a very positive move,” said Ritchie.

“We have one of the greatest rugby brains of modern times allied with one of the most respected performance experts Great Britain has produced and that experience of best practice at the very top of elite sport can only benefit us.

“Across the organisation we’re continually looking at how we can do things better. In this case that means the best performance pathways, support mechanisms and programmes which ultimately result in better England teams. I know they’re both very excited about their involvement and I’m looking forward to working with them closely.”