It has been a long, frequently painful four-year wait but Dan Cole finally has the chance to set the record straight. For him and the six other survivors from England’s troubled campaign in New Zealand, the 2011 Rugby World Cup was a deflating experience and the subsequent public airing of the Rugby Football Union’s confidential tournament review made it even worse.
Little did Cole guess, as he sat aboard the flight south four years ago this week, that the trip would be primarily remembered for late-night drunken antics in Queenstown and Manu Tuilagi’s ferry jump in Auckland Harbour rather than anything England managed to achieve on the pitch. Martin Johnson’s tenure as national coach swiftly ended and a cultural reboot under Stuart Lancaster was soon under way.
The 28-year-old Cole, among the game’s more thoughtful, intelligent characters, still regrets how badly Johnson was undermined by some individuals. “We let Johnno down. He took the brunt of the blame, wrongly in some regards. Especially being from Leicester, you feel for Johnno because he fell on his sword. The players were also to blame but he walked away taking all the bullets. It’s a credit to the man and shows Johnno’s character that he did that. I think he is remembered wrongly – he’s just remembered for that World Cup but nobody remembers that we won the Six Nations that year. And at that World Cup we lost to the team [France] who should have won it.”
In 2011 Cole was among the squad’s more junior members; now, with 51 caps, he believes Johnson’s exit was a loss – “massively” – to English rugby. He also continues to wonder what could have happened had the squad been more focused.
“We didn’t perform as well as we should have done and, no matter what was said, we did get distracted by what was happening off the field. That just bogged us down. We spent most of our time fighting stuff to do with what we had done off the field, rather than concentrating on what we were doing on it. We were playing matches but the focus was never about that.
“I hope that this time people want to talk about the right things: the rugby we play, not other stuff. Everyone else’s memory of the last World Cup is the bad stuff. No one has a positive memory of it. It would be very nice to end this one with a positive legacy.”
Given the explosion in social media, camera phones and “citizen journalism” in the past four years Cole does not need telling how quickly any squad misdemeanours will spiral into the public domain as England prepare to host the world’s third-largest sporting event. Having married only last month – the honeymoon lasted barely 24 hours before he had to report back into camp – the prop will also be advising his team‑mates to keep out of the spotlight for the duration of the tournament.
“It’s going to be hard enough winning games, you don’t need any added pressure. We learned lessons from four years ago – that World Cups are all about the rugby and you can’t get bogged down in the off-field stuff because that’s when it goes awry. That is the way it has to be; you don’t want to have distractions. We’re a good side and we’re looking forward to playing good rugby.”
Being tucked away in Bagshot for much of the tournament should at least help to insulate England from potential trouble; there are precious few ferries in Camberley or Ascot. If they do sneak out for a coffee on their day off, though, the pressure will be subtly different. “You cannot think too much about the weight of expectation but when you go out and meet people they mostly just say: ‘Good luck, go win it.’”
In Cole’s view, wave after wave of pavement goodwill can only be a positive. “Whether they are rugby fans or not they just want you to win the World Cup. It’s not a case of: ‘You better win it or I’m never speaking to you again!’”
More worrying, perhaps, is the looming opposition in Pool A, with Australia and Wales showing recent signs of forward improvement.
Cole, as the linchpin of England’s front row, is particularly wary of the Wallabies, more competitive up front than they have been in a while. “We can’t just go into a game thinking we can just batter a team at the set piece. We’ve got to be strong in all areas. The Wallaby coach, Michael Cheika, has been involved in northern hemisphere rugby so he understands the importance of the set piece in this part of the world. Australia are good at running the ball, so they will think that if they can improve their set piece but also keep their current strengths they’re going to be in a good place. We have to play to our strengths but also work on our weaknesses.”
Given Cole spent the majority of last year sidelined and needed surgery on a bulging disc in his neck – until then he had missed only one of England’s previous 45 Tests – such concerns are somewhat relative.
Happily he comes from tough stock. His maternal grandfather was a Cumbrian miner who broke his back in a pit accident and played amateur rugby league, while his father’s father flew Lancaster bombers in the second world war at the age of 21. Life can be short and so is a professional rugby career.
Unlike how it transpired in New Zealand four years ago, the valiant Cole is determined that he will enjoy the 2015 tournament, whatever happens.
