England’s players have demanded to be fully involved in the Rugby Football Union’s inquest into the team’s failure to qualify for the knockout stages of the World Cup. The review will commence this week and senior players are keen to highlight the areas they believe contributed to the squad’s underachievement.
Tom Wood indicated that feedback from squad members would be pooled rather than submitted individually as happened in 2011 when a range of criticisms of the coaching team were leaked. “We haven’t finalised anything yet but the feeling is that the leadership group and senior players will collect feedback, probably in clubs and player groups,” the Northampton flanker said. “You’ve got to filter out some of the nonsense, the white noise and the individual frustrations to make sure we get a group appraisal, rather than 31 voices coming from everywhere.”
The England squad are well aware the futures of the coach, Stuart Lancaster, and his assistants are under intense scrutiny and feel their side of the story needs to be heard. “We’re not doing it to witch-hunt, to pick anyone apart or to sell anyone out,” Wood continued. “We’ll make sure we get everyone’s feelings aired so we can move on in a positive way. I hope we have enough input as we’re the men on the ground. We’ve got some honest players who will tell it as it is. Hopefully that’s taken into consideration. If so I’m sure we’ll get the right outcome. When you don’t succeed in an England shirt questions need asking but as long as no one questions our commitment, desire and togetherness as a team I’ll be happy.”
Many of the recurring question-marks surrounding the Lancaster regime have centred on selection and on-field decision-making and Wood will be among those offering his views. “There’s probably a few minor technical things I would offer up as feedback. I don’t want to give those right now because I think they should be said to people’s faces first before I make them public. But they’re only minor things. They’re not things where you’d say: ’Fix that and you’d have won the World Cup.’”
Mike Brown believes, however, that England’s players were guilty of letting down their coaches at key moments in the tournament.
“Maybe this World Cup came a bit too early for us,” said the full-back, revealing he had struggled to sleep and had endured “one of the worst weeks of my life” in the wake of England’s premature exit. “Our general discipline wasn’t good enough. Also – and it’s been a problem for the last couple of years – the way we put teams to the sword. You need to be ruthless.
“Individually we need to strive to be the best players in the world in our position. Look at the New Zealanders, most of them would get into a world XV. At the moment, if we’re honest, which of our players would make a world XV? Which of our players would be in a Lions XV? Probably a couple but not many.”
Nick Easter, who scored three tries in England’s 60-3 thrashing of Uruguay on Saturday, feels the squad can bounce back sooner rather than later. “The future is really exciting,” he said, confirming his Six Nations availability if required. “The pool of talent is there and the potential for world class players is there. We were beaten by two very good teams.
“What’s important is we don’t look at Japan in 2019. First you’ve got to set goals like: ‘Let’s become the best team in the northern hemisphere, let’s win a Six Nations, win a grand slam.’ Let’s win those games so that, when the next World Cup comes along, we know what to do.”
