England’s 2011 Rugby World Cup campaign has been described as being disastrous in media circles, due to a few off field incidents involving the squad during the tournament in New Zealand. As one of the surviving members of the squad four years ago, Dan Cole believes the current squad have learned valuable lessons from the experience.
“A lot of the squad remember what went on and some of the behaviour was naive. We’re a lot more settled now and we all know what is expected of us. We’re all here for the one goal, which is to win the World Cup.”
The England and Leicester prop was not part of the squad that beat France 19-14 at Twickenham last weekend but at this stage of the Rugby World Cup preparations the experienced front rower was satisfied with the performance of the new look England side.
“The win against France was a very good starting point. We went out and attacked and scored three great tries through Anthony Watson and Jonny May. There’s a lot to work on but it was a good first hit out of the season.”
Debutants Henry Slade and Sam Burgess, England’s centre pairing, also had impressive games, along with Alex Goode at full back, but England’s forwards surprisingly struggled at the set piece and breakdown against a powerful French pack.
“France will be a threat at the World Cup and their forwards played well. As a forward pack we always review ourselves in an honest way because we want to get better. There’s room for improvement but in a way you don’t want to play the perfect game in a friendly and the first match of the season.”
England have been in camp since the middle of June, predominantly based at their training facility at Pennyhill Park Hotel in Surrey but the team also spent two weeks at a gruelling training camp in Denver, Colorado. Cole, who won his fiftieth England cap against France in the Six Nations win in March, believes the American destination was the ideal location to get away from the spotlight currently on the squad that goes hand in hand with being the host nation of a Rugby World Cup.
“The physical stuff we did on the field was incredibly tough, some of the toughest sessions the players have ever had, with the heat and the altitude. Denver was great though and a good place to be in the evenings (for a coffee!). None of the locals really cared that we were there.”
When I ask him about the mood in the camp Cole is clearly excited about the prospect of playing in a home World Cup campaign.
“It’s exciting. The international matches have started and there’s more of a buzz. The training has picked up a lot in the last week – it’s very apparent that the World Cup is approaching. World Cups come round every four years but to have one in your home country is a one off opportunity in a short career. The support that the public has given to other recent sporting events has been formidable and hopefully we’ll experience a similar level of support over the next few months.”
England open their Rugby World Cup campaign with a tricky tie against a Fijian side that has just won the Pacific Nations Cup, beating Samoa in a thrilling final in Canada. Cole and his England team mates are very aware of the challenge that will face the side on September 18th.
“Fiji are playing very well. They’ve beaten some great teams and they have some phenomenal players. There’s no way we’ll be taking Fiji lightly – they have a good World Cup record and we’re fully aware of how good they can be.”
Stuart Lancaster has named a strong side for Saturday’s rematch against France in Paris. England’s starting pack could very well be the eight that will be picked for the match against Fiji and there are also returns for first choice backs including Ben Youngs, George Ford, Jonathan Joseph and Mike Brown. Cole, as he suggested in his analysis of last Saturday’s match, is focused on only one outcome again this weekend.
“It’s about winning. It’s about building momentum and finding the ability to win. You don’t want to perform really well and lose. If you can win ugly you’d take that because you can always improve performance but you gain much more confidence from winning matches.”
It sounds like the ideal mind set to have less than a month before the start of the eighth Rugby World Cup.
By Alastair Pickering (@FollowRugbySite)
Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
As you know by now, we are hilarious, and you should be following us on Facebook and Twitter. 
I admire Coles loyalty to the coaching staff and he’s obviously “on message” but it depends on your definition of naivety.
Wood’s brain freeze last week in opting to go for the corner when 3 points were needed could be labelled naïve,as could Haskell’s dumb trip v France in the 6N. Robshaw has form here too.
When the pressure is on or a difficult decision has to be taken I still think England lack a player with a genuinely cool demeanour and cold eyed logic.
It’s another SNAFU from Bomber ultimately. Either he won’t let the players think for themselves or he has failed to give them the confidence and guidance to do so correctly. T-CUP springs to mind!
The arrogance and unpleasantness of English rugby players is well documented e.g. at RWC 2011 in NZ and of course earlier in 2008 in NZ with a certain Mr Brown.
One could write a very very long book detailing the scandals surrounding this team, its union and all that surrounds the ‘Entitlement attitude’ of those who play, run and so many of those who support English rugby.
All non-English citizens of Britain must now prepare themselves to be bombarded by full blown wall to wall pro-English media propaganda.
The sort of thing was last seen on this scale at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
Are you really comparing a rugby World Cup to the Nazis just because it’s in England?
No I am comparing the reality of the 1930s Olympics of 1936 and Leni Refienstahl’s famous Nazi epic ‘Olympiad’ to the reality that the Welsh, the Scots, the Ulstermen and the Irish Nationalists community of the North of Ireland will have to suffer from now until the 31st Oct 2015 assuming EnGErLUND make the final on All Hallowes Eve at 4:00pm
Stu. Don’t rise to it. Enoch may very very rarely say something worth reading but generally his posts are the witterings and rantings of a man with an inferiority complex the size of Glamorgan
Actually, I live in Gwynedd.
But then I would not expect you, an English man, a Sais and a white colonist to understand the difference between a community in North Wales that was wiped from the face of the Earth to provide water for the residents of Liverpool in the 1950s to the 750,000 residents of the valleys who are living with the economic and social policies of Margaret Thatcher. Policies that in the 1980s led to the valley communities of South Wales seeing male unemployment rates rise to 34+%.
You never lived through this and will never understand, as you never saw your own community RAPED by the the English state.
Tories 330 seats with 318 seats in Engerlund. 1 In Scotland, none in Ulster/Northern Ireland and barely 1 seat in 4 in Wales.
Yet you can now laugh and mock as the Tories dictate to Ulster/Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, the submerged nations of the UK that never elected this Tory, privileged and public school elite of ‘Call me Dave’ + ‘Gorgeous Goering’ once …..ever…at all
You support a mere team as I watch my community crumble around me courtesy of the English State and you think that I should doff my cap in the direction of the English??????
I think you should stop tarring all English people with the same brush mate. Remember the battle of Orgreave? Remember Whitelaw saying that Liverpool should be left to die during the 80’s?
The riots in Birmingham and Liverpool and London, the destruction of the Northern industrial powerhouses?
Yeah England had it really easy under Thatch.