DYLAN HARTLEY’S NEW COLUMN
Our World Cup columnist takes you into England’s frantic dressing room just before kick-off...
THIS IS what the England players have been waiting for. This is the release, after months of preparing for this World Cup. The guys playing tomorrow are the lucky ones. They will be desperate to get cracking at last.
They’ve been in camp for two and a half months, training and gearing up for this moment.
The message to the team before their first game against Tonga will be, ‘You’ve done the graft, you’ve prepared well, now just free yourselves up to go and enjoy it’. Game day is all about enjoying the occasion and executing the game-plan.
When the players come in after their warm-up, 10 minutes before kick- off, the changing room is a busy place. Someone is not happy with their strapping, so they’ll be getting re-strapped. Kyle Sinckler will be shouting for Deep Heat. He says it every week and it’s never there, so he’ll be shouting for Deep Heat.
People need to go to the toilet. Someone’s contact lens has come out. Someone’s shorts are too tight or too big and they’re looking for the kit man. I can imagine it will be quite sweaty, so someone will be looking for a towel to dry their face.
There’s so much going on, lots of hustle and bustle, but some people are sitting down listening to one last song, some are praying, some have got a shirt over their head, some are shouting. Coaches are going round giving people one last reminder. It’s all really frantic.
There will be a lot of noise, a lot of messages flying around. Ben Youngs is often very vocal, talking about the importance of the game. But the main time for messages is when you get a one-minute call from the team manager, which is basically when the ref is banging on the door. Even then, the boys are coming over in dribs and drabs, which can be frustrating as captain!
You’ll have three-quarters of the team there but Courtney’s still putting his boots on. He is Mr Chill and takes his time. You get the team together and look at their body language.
I’m looking for heads up, I’m looking for big, deep breaths, I’m looking for eye contact. I’m looking for confidence, basically.
That is the last time you’re going to connect as a team before there are all the external factors: the stadium, the crowd, the other team, the referee.
That final minute in the changing room is the last time of calm. You see everyone’s eyes, you look around, give a little nod and say, ‘We’re ready’. You don’t want to fill their heads at that stage, but I would always focus on the start of the game; the opening exchanges — how you would like to dictate what happens.
You’ll talk about wanting to shock the opposition with your intensity.
I’d be saying, ‘ You’ve done all the hard work, now just go and enjoy this. Don’t hold back. Don’t dip your toe in the water, dive in — from the start’.
When you go out into the tunnel, there is always an official who meets you and says, ‘ Wait here’. There’s often a little mascot, so you can’t be snarling and dribbling with your eyes popping out of your head. I’m a father myself and I know that little kid is about to run out into what you are running out into, so I always try to make that kid feel welcome.
When I line up in the tunnel, I’m thinking business. Some people like to smile, but for me it is always business.
I am about to go into battle, so you have to get the business face on, but still think of the little kid next to you!
As I would be first out, you see the other team lined up, but you don’t stand and stare at them. I’ve heard some sledging in tunnels before games, things like, ‘Come on lads, let’s f***ing rip into them, they don’t want it today’ — stuff like that.
It’s funny. We’ve never done that as an England team and the irony is that, quite often, the times people have said that to us, we’ve given them a hiding.