Dan Cole has reflected on his journey back to the England squad for the Six Nations after spending three years in exile following the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Eddie Jones did not select the veteran prop after England’s Rugby World Cup final defeat to South Africa, but he was recalled to the Test team in Steve Borthwick’s maiden squad of 2023.
He earned his 96th cap off the bench against Scotland in round one of the Six Nations and quickly went about addressing that fateful night in Yokohama three years.
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Positive impact
Shortly after being injected into the game, Cole packed down against Scotland’s Pierre Schoeman and immediately won a penalty off the loosehead prop.
Although the match at Twickenham ended in defeat for England, he took satisfaction from his first involvement back in the white jersey.
“It was quite nice! Any time you come off the bench, you want to make a positive impact with your first involvement, so to be able to get a penalty at the scrum…. it’s what I’m designed to do,” Cole told the PA news agency.
“Obviously, the last time I was in the England scrum, it didn’t go so well. I’m not going to say that the Scotland game in any way compensated for what happened previously, but to get that penalty and go forward in the scrum was quite nice.
“I wouldn’t say it was frustration coming out, but you’re there to do a job, and you want to do it well.
“I was at peace with what had happened in 2019 and thought that was the end of my international career, but you never give up hope because you always want to play for England.”
Rugby looking after the players
At the age of 35, Cole is the form tighthead in the Premiership and is entering the twilight of his career.
Modern players are playing further into their 30s than in previous generations. When asked how long he could continue, Cole pointed to the improved approach to weekly training compared to the confrontational sessions he endured during the earlier periods of his career at Leicester.
“I haven’t looked at the end, so to speak. Rugby, through its coaching and conditioning, does a good job in looking after players for the weekend these days,” he said.
“If we trained now like we did earlier in my career, I probably wouldn’t still be playing. We used to play on Saturday but also Tuesdays and Thursdays because we had internal games.
“It wasn’t as intense as it is now, but when I started, there was me, Julian White and Martin Castrogiovanni at tighthead prop.
“The hookers there were George Chuter, Mefin Davies and Benjamin Kayser – all internationals. Across a lot of positions, we were two or three deep.
Training ground fights
“We were all training against each other, fighting against each other, and if anyone got injured, then we had someone else who was really good that can come in to play.
“Now you try and have as much depth as possible, but squads are smaller, so you have to look after the players you’ve got, and that’s where the science comes in. Now you train intensely, but it’s a lot more specific.
“There would be a weekly fight, or someone would do something and get whacked, whereas now you can’t do that in a game because of TMOs etc., so you don’t do it in training.
“Now it’s ‘you’re hurting the team, what are you doing?’, whereas before it was ‘if you want a fight, please go ahead and fight’.”
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