And yes, it is tough, but I enjoy it. I enjoy being with a new group of young England players, I enjoy getting to know Dave Strettle and Roy Winters, I enjoy playing outside scrum-half Andy Gomarsall, and in the hotel I enjoy retreating every evening with Matthew Tait, Toby Flood, Jamie Noon and Dan Scarborough for our nightly shot of the TV series Entourage.
What I really enjoy is the backs-against-the-wall spirit in training. We all seem to pull together, and then the most god-awful stomach virus starts picking us off, one by one. Strets gets it so badly that it takes all his effort just to crawl to the phone to call the doc. So he has to go to hospital – and the assignment becomes even harder.
We lose the first Test 58–10. The scoreline looks horrible but we play hard and, for periods, we play well. And I get crunched in the worst collision of my career. I try to dive in to stop a certain try, but Roy Winters has the same idea and I get the full weight of Roy’s shoulder on my nose and the impact goes through my back so hard that it feels as though my spine inverts and my feet are going to flip over my head.
A week is not long enough to recover from a hit like that, but I’m not only playing in the second Test, I’m captain for the day. Two and a half years after being made captain by Andy Robinson, I finally get to do the job. Again, we are not close on the scoreboard. We lose 55–22, but that scoreline doesn’t reflect how we stepped up to the challenge. It doesn’t say that we are ahead at half-time.
That’s the story of the entire tour. We give a hell of a lot to it and are heavily beaten. There’s no denying it, but we can feel kind of proud. Collectively, we met the challenge, we fronted up, and I’m really glad I didn’t walk out on the experience.
With the World Cup on the horizon, we know where we stand. We’re not kidding ourselves. We’re going into this World Cup rather differently from the way we went into the last. In our dressing room at Twickenham, big new signs read ‘STW’, which we discover stands for ‘Shock The World’. But the southern hemisphere teams right now will be anything other than shocked.
We go to Portugal for a training camp, but a nagging feeling persists that we are not fast-forwarding at all, and, in fact, we are trundling along a bit too slowly. Forty-six players are here, which maybe is too many. Time is the crucial factor. We need to start forming bonds with the players we’ll be linking with, and putting things in place structurally. We need to complete repetition after repetition. Everything we do has to be so ingrained that, when the pressure comes, we have inbuilt behaviours that we can rely upon. But we don’t seem to be getting it quite right. With this many players, we are working more on selection than fine-tuning.
Mentally, I am not in the best place, either. After all the injuries and my time away, I’m not totally convinced that I deserve a place among this group of players. In our World Cup warm-up matches we beat Wales well, but lose twice to France. We will be travelling to this World Cup in different circumstances from those of four years ago. That much is clear.
The day before we leave for France, the general opinion of England’s chances at the World Cup is summed up at the Scrum In The Park event. This is an open day, a celebration, a meet-the-fans occasion, at which we are also expected to do some media interviews. The questions are not forgiving.
Is it a bit unrealistic to think you can win this? I come up with an answer and move on. Being a player, this kind of attitude makes no sense to me.
Next question: would getting into the quarter-finals be a good result for England? I come up with another answer and move on.
Another question: you’re eighth in the world at the moment, in world rankings. How high do you think you can finish? I come up with another answer and move on. I am trying to be polite and positive.
Another one: you haven’t won many games recently, so isn’t the World Cup a bit unrealistic? Thanks.
No one actually says come on, admit it, you’re no good and you’re going to lose, which maybe shows great restraint, but they have all as good as said so anyway. It’s as if I’m being accused of lying, and I find this tiring. It makes me feel hot inside. I don’t understand this negative mentality. This is a squad that has faced some of the most ruthless environments in world rugby. Just because we’ve had a couple of difficult results doesn’t mean we have to set our sights low.
More important issues are afoot. I meet Adrian Edmondson, which is a complete pleasure because I am a massive Young Ones fan and he is a huge England fan, and he also says he’s looking forward to the World Cup. And that’s great. So there are some positive people around here after all.
Then we spot Jessie Wallace, better known to Eastenders fans as Kat Slater. Shelley and her sister Tracey are certainly Eastenders fans and Shelley literally makes me ask Jessie if we can have a picture taken with her. So I do and the result is preserved on Tracey’s phone – a picture of the three of them with me in the background looking like some sort of goofy stalker.
When we leave for the World Cup in France, comparisons are inevitably made to four years ago. Back then, we were favourites and we were OK with that; I felt we had earned the right to the tag. This time, we are firmly assured of the fact that people have written us off, and we are fine with that, too. It’s nice to sneak in under the radar, although, being England, that is never completely an option. But the atmosphere is good. People expect us to fail and we’d like to prove them wrong; it’s just another motivation.
On the flight, I look around at this squad that is expected to achieve nothing: Martin Corry, Phil Vickery, Lawrence Dallaglio, Jason Robinson, Mike Catt, Josh Lewsey, Simon Shaw, Ben Kay to name just a few. Is this what you call no-hopers? Are these guys who can be written off? All I feel is confidence when I look at them. I know that, on the field, they will cover my back and I will do everything I can to cover theirs.
We move into our base for the first month of the competition, the Trianon Palace Hotel in Versailles. It is what it says it is – a palace. It oozes elegance, style and indulgence, and it is a minute’s walk from the stunning Palace of Versailles itself. This is not the sort of place you come to fail.
Day One of training. The mood is fantastic, the sun is out, there is a freshness of attitude. It feels like a good start to our campaign.
For me, though, this feeling doesn’t last long. We work on our attack and defence in a game of fairly light two-handed touch. This is a training game based around people learning their running lines and positional responsibilities with the ball, and working hard on communication and togetherness in defence.
Steve Borthwick tries to run through a hole and I step in to help Phil Vickery, who stretches out to stop Steve and in doing so brings him to the ground. My momentum means that I have to hurdle the two of them but my right foot lands on Steve’s shin, and as the weight comes down on it, my ankle rolls over flat against the ground. It’s agony, but the physios haven’t seen me. I’m lying on the ground and I yell out to Barney, the physio, to get over here and help me, my language loud and colourful.
Of all my many injuries, few have been as painful as this one. I am taken to a physio bed in the small changing room next to the pitch. Ice is wrapped round my ankle, which is already swelling. I feel strangely numb, certain that my World Cup is over, and yet I also know how this plays out. I use all that I have learned so far along my spiritual path to tell myself: Control what you can control. Let the rest just take its course and maybe just dare to think really positively. And that way I seem to feel a hell of a lot better.
Barney, at whom I’ve been yelling, takes me to hospital for a scan and the results show torn ligaments on the outside of the ankle and bruising on the inside. In fact, the bruising is so intense that no one can see that I have a tear on the inside of the ankle too, but that is by the by.
Back at the Trianon, Pasky gives me hope. He is maybe the one guy you want to see in these situations. He is so positive; he really cares. So when Pasky says to me there is the chance it could come right, I realise I have a fight on my hands, and I
know I’ll win it. I want to hug him. We’ll give it as good a shot as possible, he says. We’re just going to take it day by day, and go really hard at it. Go hard at it? Work hard? This is exactly the kind of challenge I relish.
So this is the deal. I have to ice it every two or three hours, which means setting my alarm two or three times in the night. That’s kind of masochistic, but you won’t find anyone more willing to undergo this kind of masochism than I am, especially if it means playing for England.
I also have a hand-held machine, called a Scenar, which sends electrical pulses through the foot. So I am now my own little walking physio unit. I have a trolley with my ice and my Scenar, which I push around the Trianon, either to pool sessions with Pasky or to the massage room of Richard Wegrzyk – my old friend Krajicek.
This is another great place to be. Krajicek is an incredibly chilled personality, which goes well with his job, and the atmosphere he creates makes him a magnet before games. On those long waits in the afternoons or mornings of the day before playing, when you want to escape from what’s ahead of you for a bit, his massage room is full of players who don’t need a massage but just want to hang out or watch a film and feed from his calming energy.
I now have an excuse to live in Krajicek’s massage room. Everyone else here is playing a World Cup, but I’m on a totally different timetable playing a totally different game.
I am faced with the kind of challenge I love. Pasky says two weeks, maybe three, to play on it. It’s really up to me. I know what I have to do. It’s me against myself. I have to drop into the zone and flick the Tunnel Vision switch.
Whether I can move my ankle or not, though, is as good as irrelevant, because on the field, a campaign that started badly is getting worse.
We beat the United States unconvincingly, but our next game, against South Africa, is a shocker. I sit in the stands next to Vicks, who has been suspended, and with Lawrence and the other guys who aren’t playing. And it’s tough to watch.
I really feel for the boys out there in the thick of it. It just doesn’t look right. People don’t seem to understand what the others are doing. The players don’t seem to be able to connect or adapt to the way the game is playing out. South Africa don’t help; for our every mistake, they make us pay.
When you get confusion like this, when players don’t know exactly where they’re supposed to be, they want to help out in any way possible and, subconsciously, they head to where the action is, focusing on the ball. So you end up with all your players around the ball, which means that, since you have no width to attack with, you are very easy to defend against. It also means you’ve got nowhere to kick to because you’ve got no chase options, and it makes you extremely vulnerable if you turn the ball over because you’ve got no width in your defence.
Catty is at ten and I can see he is feeling the strain more than anyone. I know this because I know exactly what he is going through. When you haven’t got any width or options in your attack, you haven’t got a chance. He is massively limited in how he can now play his game. I have so much respect and admiration for Catty, and he’s struggling so much through no fault of his own. I wish I could help him out.
Then we lose two players – first Jason with a hamstring, but his World Cup is not definitely over; and Noonie with a knee-ligament strain, and his World Cup is unfortunately done. The final score is 36–0 but, if it’s possible, it feels even worse. I feel awful for Noonie. He is an astoundingly good professional, incredibly strong, easily one of the most courageous players I’ve ever played alongside and an absolute belter of a teammate. Great bloke. I feel for him because he’s fought so hard for his opportunities, he has finally got himself here, where he deserves to be, in a World Cup, and now this. Poor guy.
The mood afterwards is horrendous. Of course it is. In a small physio room round the corner from the main dressing room, Lawrence, Joe Worsley, Olly Barkley and I try to get our heads round where we go next. We’ve got to sort something out. Already the feeling is grabbing hold of us that this has got to come from the players, because at this stage, there is simply no other way.
Players start shuffling into the room like defeated soldiers. We commiserate but there’s nothing you can say now that’s going to make a difference. Everyone is quiet, subdued, empty shells of the people who went out before kick-off. The coaches tell us, basically, that we’re down to the ‘last-chance saloon’. We can’t afford to lose again. We’ve got to summon everything we’ve got.
But everyone knows all that. The more important question, as always, is how?
So there we are, in the middle of this sombre team talk, when the door opens and in comes a French guy whom no one has seen before pushing Noonie in a wheelchair. Except it’s not a wheelchair. The wheels are really small, more a wheel-trolley. Noonie gestures to the corner where his locker is and they are halfway across the room when the French guy, suddenly aware of the awkward silence, panics, gently releases Noonie and bolts for the door. We are all trying to concentrate on Brian and the messages of doom and gloom but it’s impossible to ignore Noonie rolling towards the corner of the room, where he finishes up trapped in-between the benches, unable to move, involuntarily facing completely the wrong way.
Everyone holds their breath, trying not to crack, but some guys start laughing. Make the most of it. The laughter doesn’t last long.
No one on that team deserves to face such a scoreline. No one deserves that experience on the field at all. Word is that we have been ‘humiliated’. I disagree with that, but frustration in the camp is now tangible.
The frustration is that we – or they, for now – are working hard on the training field, but lack of understanding of what they are trying to do and lack of attention to the finer details means that so much of the hard work counts for so little come match day.
So the England World Cup campaign finally reaches boiling point. Something’s got to be done – at least, that’s the feeling. At the next squad meeting, a few home truths are finally laid on the line. We don’t really know what we’re doing out there. That’s the message from the players to Brian. Olly Barkley delivers it in the strongest language. He tells Brian that we haven’t got a clue.
I sympathise with Brian. As a coach, this cannot be easy to take, but it’s not as if we are looking for someone to pin the blame on here. It’s purely a case of an England team trying to move forward and put our World Cup back on track. Everyone here hugely respects and likes Brian. What we don’t like is being beaten 36–0.
Brian could have gone two ways. He could easily have dug in his heels and refused to listen. But he is not like that. That is not the sort of person he is at all. So he does the opposite. He hears our grievances and he invites us to come up with the solution and wants us to deliver it our way.
This smart bit of player empowerment takes the sting out of the situation. Soon, in a small meeting room next to the lift on the bottom floor of the Trianon, another meeting is under way. The main playmakers, standing around a flip chart, are encouraged to discuss how we want to play. Immediately, there is a connection. I’ve not played a lot with Olly but he and I seem to share the same vision for the structure. Catty is on board, too. What we want is options everywhere and players to understand their roles.
It has taken a heavy defeat, but we’ve used that adversity to try to move forward. We have a game plan now, on paper at least. The next question is whether we can play it.
In normal circumstances, Pasky said, we should give my ankle six weeks to recover properly. In these circumstances, we give it nine days before I’m back in training, but I have the most appalling limp. My ankle is strapped so tightly that I can’t move my right foot much anyway, and when I jog it looks horrific. Jogging is really painful, and yet the thinking is that I’m going to play at the weekend against Samoa.
My second training session back happens to be one of the few that are open to the media and the supporters. I don’t want to make it too obvious that I’m really strugglin
g, so it actually helps that Olly and I miss the start of the training session because the team bus sets off without anyone having done a head count. And when we do get there, I try to hide myself in the middle of the pack as we jog around the field.
However, now we have more of an idea of what we are trying to achieve as a rugby team, the vibe around the squad is more positive. A belief is taking hold that what we are doing could be a catalyst. There is still a lot of stress about, however. There is far too much negativity surrounding every mistake. A session cannot be condemned as ‘shit’ because a pass or two doesn’t go to hand or a ball or two hits the floor. If the World Cup is going to be remotely successful, this is a mind-set we need to change and fast.
Far from shit, I am starting to see the kind of shape we need that will bring the best out of some of England’s great players.
Samoa give us a scare. My own jolt comes when Brian Lima, known round the world for his tackling, nearly takes my head off. I am incredibly lucky to duck in time. The pain I felt when I went flying into Roy Winters a few months back would have been nothing compared to this had Lima connected.
But we pull away to win with a little to spare, we follow the same pattern against Tonga and land ourselves an unenviable quarter-final against Australia in Marseille. That’s where our stuttering campaign is expected finally to grind to a halt.
The atmosphere in Marseille is a weird mix. The Georgians have just checked out of our hotel and the World Cup, which is possibly why, when Lawrence checks in to his room, he finds vomit all over the walls. I’m woken up one night when the ceiling caves in. And we get a spate of injuries in training.
Jonny: My Autobiography Page 25