Mallett: Shred of hope for England

Mallett rebuffed the Rugby Football Union when they enquired about his availability earlier this month, citing family reasons.

The former South Africa, Italy and Stade Francais coach is also unwilling to work within the current structure, which sees the head coach report to a director of elite rugby and not the board.

But Mallett, speaking in promotion of Saturday's Heroes Rugby Challenge at Twickenham, admits he might be interested if the RFU chain of command is altered.

"You can never rule yourself out of a job like this," he said. "The family situation might have changed - I might have spent four or five months at home.

"My wife might be saying to me 'it's time to get off the sofa and back into coaching'. And the RFU will hopefully have resolved their issues by then.

"At the moment it's hypothetical, but it certainly wouldn't be out of the question.

"It's a very big job, a huge honour but there are a number of issues to be resolved.

"I'd never count it out because it's one of the top five coaching jobs in the world."

The post of England head coach is often billed as the biggest job in world rugby, but Mallett queried this description.

"Biggest...it's difficult to say. Coaching New Zealand and South Africa are very big jobs as well in terms of expectation. There isn't a single game they expect to lose," he said.

"Apart from 2002, 2003, England isn't a team that has been consistently winning, especially against southern hemisphere teams, but the expectation is as high as in New Zealand or South Africa. In that way it's a very difficult job.

"It also has the most enquiring and intrusive media in the world and that makes it a very complicated job. You accept that if you do a job like this."

New Zealand's World Cup-winning assistant coach Wayne Smith, another strong candidate, indicated he would be unavailable until next summer.

Smith is committed to the Waikato Chiefs for two years but has a break clause that comes into effect in August.

"I'm interested in coming back to the UK. I want to come back, but what it will be to do I don't know."

Mallett and Smith are coaching the Southern Hemisphere against the Northern Hemisphere in a match staged to raise money for the Help for Heroes charity.

Danny Grewcock, Will Greenwood, Ben Cohen, Andrew Mehrtens and Justin Marshall are among the players who will join servicemen and emerging academy talent at Twickenham.