Leading article: Lancaster has reminded us how to be good sports

No tirades, no blame game, no scowling, no monosyllabic answers. What on earth is the matter with the caretaker head of England rugby?

Does he not realise – following England's defeat by Wales in the Six Nations at Twickenham – that churlish, boorish behaviour on such occasions is more-or-less expected, and that congratulating your players on having done their best, when they didn't even win, is most certainly not in order?

Joking aside, Stuart Lancaster was of course a model of grace and openness when talking about the mistakes made by the England squad. His demeanour formed a stark contrast with the trend among the managers of big-name sports teams in recent years to become extremely economical with words when asked to explain what went wrong with their teams. We salute the birth of this new era of glasnost in national sport and hope it catches on.