Finally it is starting to make sense. England’s poor form in their pre-World Cup warm-up games has been extensively documented but there was a cunning plan all along. And its architect? A Welshman who openly admits to being “hard” at times, with a penchant for taking players “to dark places” and using watt bikes as his instruments of torture.
Meet Aled Walters, the strength and conditioning guru with one of rugby’s more impressive CVs, having previously helped South Africa lift the Webb Ellis Cup in Japan in 2019. The Springboks lost their opening game but bounced back to conquer the world. Now the Carmarthen-born Walters is in England’s corner and is busy working on the sequel.
Because if the opening pool victory against Argentina on Saturday revealed a different side to the world, England also looked far better physically. During August, when repeatedly asked if their match weeks were featuring heavier-than-usual training loads, the management insisted there was nothing unusual going on. Now it has emerged that the squad, among other things, played a virtually full-bore practice game on the Tuesday prior to their defeat in Dublin.
Walters freely acknowledges England looked “leggy” as they stumbled through their warm-up programme but says there was method in their madness, even if it meant letting down the paying public. “People are going to be worried, aren’t they? They were thinking: ‘There’s a World Cup round the corner and they look terrible. They don’t look fit…they’re lacking energy’. But we knew exactly what was coming and the players did as well.
“People on the outside being critical… I get it. We didn’t look energetic. But we have confidence in our planning and our programme so that short-term pain should lead to something when we head into the Japan game.”
According to Walters, England had to do something different because of the disruption that has swirled around the national team over the past year. He only joined the Rugby Football Union from Leicester in June and compares his task to a weekend crash course prior to sitting a driving test. “We didn’t have the advantage many nations have had of having four years – or eight years – with the same coaches and same players.
“We couldn’t afford to row back early. We just didn’t have enough prep done to be able to do that. So yeah, we looked leggy, but I’m glad we did because if we didn’t look leggy in the August Tests, we wouldn’t have done enough.”
Experience has also taught him to hold his nerve, even amid the increasing howls of external anguish. Having started with the Scarlets, the former Loughborough University student has also worked for Taranaki in New Zealand, the Brumbies in Australia and Munster, as well as the Boks and the Tigers. Along the way he has learned from his mistakes, particularly those occasions when he has slightly misjudged the delicate balance between intense preparation and weekend performance. As he puts it: “I’ve made enough errors in the past that I now know what it needs to look like.”
What also sets “Smart Aled” apart from many other conditioning gurus, though, is his gregarious nature and sense of humour. Walters is a natural mood enhancer who long ago learned that fun and fitness do not have to be mutually exclusive. “Years ago Mark Taylor said I was the most negative S&C coach he’d ever experienced. That cut me to the bone because I’m not like that. I’m hard, because I know where we have to build to. But I need to smile and I get energy from people laughing and smiling.
“I’ve been around long enough to appreciate when guys need to relax and laugh and the times when they need a prod. It’s about feeling what’s appropriate.”
Recent examples have included singing “Happy Birthday” to England’s defence coach, Kevin Sinfield, three times – “Can you imagine him eating a cake? What’s a birthday treat for him? Probably running a marathon and raising £1 million or something” – but his speciality is testing the willpower of popular players such as Bevan Rodd or Billy Vunipola. “It depends what they are weakest at,” Walters says. “I really like watt bikes. The guys who are terrible get the bike quite often.
“Billy is strong on the bike so I know it’s out on the field where I can get to him. Anything that gets them into the dark, where they get really uncomfortable, where they think: ‘This is not nice’. When you get hardened to it, anything they face then in games should be relatively fine.” What if anyone attempts to answer back? “Some do, but they need to be careful because they know what is coming tomorrow. If there’s a big session, they know my wrath is a few extra reps.”
Underpinning all of this, though, is a single collective goal and a determination to ensure England peak at precisely the right time. “To get someone fitter you almost have to dig them into a hole first to allow them to recover and then come out stronger. That’s a big thing. Were our players unfit six weeks ago? No, they were just under-recovered.
“There was a famous Australian swimming coach, Bill Sweetenham, who worked with the British Olympic team. He made sure the swimmers were tired going into the World Championships, which just preceded the Olympics. They got some medals but he knew that if you can produce when you are tired and lacking energy, what are you going to be like when you are free of fatigue and energetic? That is what we are getting to now.”
