Parling: Lancaster laid good foundations

Lancaster stepped down last week after presiding over a poor World Cup campaign where England became the first host nation to fail to get out of the group stage.

Following Lancaster's exit, England's governing Rugby Football Union (RFU) insisted they would spare no expense as they launched a worldwide hunt for his successor.

Former Australia and Japan coach Eddie Jones has emerged as the bookmakers' favourite, with Jake White – the Springboks' coach when they won the 2007 World Cup – another candidate to fill the vacancy.

Lancaster faced plenty of flak for his selection choices at the World Cup but England second row Parling believes he has laid the foundations for a successful team.

"He put a lot of good things in place, a lot of foundations," Parling told BBC Sport on Wednesday.

"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."

Parling, who left Leicester to join Exeter in pre-season, said he would always regard the 2015 edition of the World Cup as one of the great missed chances of his career.

"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," the 32-year-old said.

"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, 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."

England begin their Six Nations campaign away to Scotland on February 6.

Agence France-Presse