New Zealand sports fans reckon an English team couldn't win a one-ticket raffle let alone an international event of consequence - and now it seems the English agree.
England's three main sports are meeting up to see what they can learn from their successive World Cup debacles.
The football, cricketand rugby teams scored an unprecedented and unwanted hat-trick by going out of their World Cups in the group stages.
To ensure nothing so humiliating happens again, English FA technical director Dan Ashworth has been pooling knowledge with England cricket director Andrew Strauss and Joe Lydon, the (England) RFU's head of international player development.
The common ground that is leading to regular meetings between them includes club v country issues and central contracts, as well as woeful World Cup performances.
Ashworth, who will have the entire England football operation under his control at St George's Park after Euro 2016, is also forging close links with UK Sport. He believes their methods of evaluating medal potential could provide useful tools to judge footballers' potential.
Meanwhile, Rob Andrew, Twickenham's great survivor, was at the centre of an altercation at a charity dinner before the Rugby World Cup final when he took exception to a guest asking him what exactly he did at the RFU.
Andrew, whose jobs have switched from directorships of elite rugby to rugby operations and then professional rugby, was on a panel with RFU chairman Bill Beaumont at London's East India Club when the question was posed from the floor. Andrew didn't give a clear answer but after the Q&A session went straight to his critic's table for a robust conversation.
