Long ago and far away: 2011 v 2015

What England’s players said in a leaked report about the pre-tournament camp four years ago compared to now:

2011 Anonymous: ‘Pre-season was a f***-up. We would have had a better chance of doing well at the World Cup if we had been allowed to train at our club. It wasn’t hard, it was just long. We felt physically and mentally drained.’

2015 Youngs: ‘When we’re doing fitness here, we’re doing fitness which leads into rugby. You’re then training and practising fatigued so you have to execute when you’re really knackered. It makes complete sense.’

2011 Anonymous: ‘It was not a place where you felt you could be yourself or talk candidly. It was quite a dour, depressing set-up to be part of.’

2015 Youngs: ‘Stuart encourages people to lead, encourages people to talk. His door is always open, all the coaches want to tap into your knowledge because you’re the ones on the field, but also ultimately they give you the framework.’

2011 Anonymous: ‘You sense for some players it was more about getting cash and caps than about getting better. Players were chasing endorsements.’

2015 Youngs: ‘It’s so different to four years ago. I don’t think we will have any issues. Guys are so committed to the opportunity and what a chance we have in playing in a home World Cup.’

2011 Anonymous: ‘X asked why we weren’t training at the same time as we were due to play in order to acclimatise but that was ignored. All the plans we’d worked on for weeks suddenly went out the window because they didn’t happen to work in one game.’

2015 Youngs: ‘It’s the most planned schedule I’ve ever been involved in. Everything has a purpose. There’s nothing we do that’s mindless. You can see the thought and the reasoning behind everything.’

2011 Anonymous: ‘To go into World Cup games not having a game-plan, any structure or clear idea of what we were going to do in attack was astonishing. The man management was absolutely terrible.’

2015 Youngs: It’s a lot different and there’s a real understanding between players and coaches, and coaches and players, of how we want to play and where we want to go as a side.’