Three members of Brian Ashton’s squad from 16 years ago look back on the key matches in a unique and controversial campaign. Could their revival offer hope for the current beleaguered England team?
Pool A: England 0-36 South Africa, Paris, 14 Sept
Joe Worsley That was one result, but there were years of preparation before that that hadn’t been good. It had been brewing. A catastrophic result like that is shocking and horrible to be part of, but it created an environment for what happened later. Sometimes people need that threshold for change.
Simon Shaw In the warm-ups we beat Wales by about 50 [62-5 at Twickenham], and a lot of that dominance came from the pack. Nick Easter scored four tries with a cumulative yardage of about five. He basically had to step over the line because we were so dominant in the scrum and that set the stall out. It was not the 15-man game Brian [Ashton, the head coach] was perhaps looking to play. Despite the fact we got turned over in terms of points, as a forward I was almost stunned in the changing room afterwards. We went forward in the scrums, dominated the ruck, we had a good percentage of possession … lineouts went extraordinarily well. We were all scratching our heads in the forwards.
Paul Sackey We had some new faces, new combinations. It was really bad, one of the worst games I’ve played in for England. South Africa were the best team in the tournament, but losing to them that way was an embarrassment.
JW It [the squad’s debate on tactics] wasn’t a storming of the Bastille. It was democratic: we talked it through and stuck together, including the staff. The bigger side of it was the motivation the team got to fight. Yes, we had a [new] gameplan, which was a pretty simple part of it. But the key to rugby is to motivate your team to fight.
SS It was a discussion. In some circumstances people won’t allow themselves to speak up. But when you know there’s no tomorrow, what have you got to lose? You think: ‘I’m going to say something now and it might piss someone off.’ But if you know you’re finished at the end of the World Cup, you’re going to say it. Andy Farrell is a good example. Obviously, an extraordinary rugby mind in league or union. That was his one opportunity to win a World Cup. Why would he not open up? Mike Catt spoke up, an incredibly experienced player, and Vicks [Phil Vickery], but also some of the younger guys.
PS Brian OK’ed it for us to go out and have a drink. We had to come together and sort out the mess. We went back to Brian and said: “This is how we want to do things,” and he OK’ed it. At any level, any CEO, if you’re not listening you’re not a very good leader. In my eyes that makes him a very good leader. We were fortunate we had Shawsy, Lol [Lawrence Dallaglio], and Phil Vickery. Senior players who had won a World Cup. We trained as hard as we could and turned it around.
Quarter-final: Australia 10-12 England, Marseille, 6 Oct
With victories against Samoa and Tonga, added to the opening win against USA, England qualify behind South Africa from Pool A. The highly rated Wallabies await.
PS It was amazing, one of my favourite games. The stadium, the atmosphere, our passion and fight. Everybody thought we were going to lose that game. But everybody thought we were going to lose every game. We dominated them in the scrum and in every aspect. We were physical, clinical and we just wanted it more. Up front, the boys absolutely battered them and defensively we smashed them. Mentally, I think they [Australia] were gone. In a lot of the other games we kicked a lot of possession away, but in that game we didn’t.
JW The two games before, Tonga and Samoa, were pretty bruising but we controlled them. We had chiselled down on how we were going to play. When it came to Australia we were pretty controlled and we did create opportunities. I was over the moon, because I gave away a penalty five minutes from the end, 50 metres out. They had a shot at it but missed. I’d have held on to that one for ever had it gone over. We were very happy we won, but after the meeting [after the defeat by South Africa], we knew we were going to put everything we could into it. If we win, carry on the ride. It was that kind of atmosphere: let’s keep going.
SS We wanted to engage the pack because we always felt that’s an area we could dominate, particularly with Australia. But there’s a tendency to think if you dominate their pack then it gives you licence to throw the ball wide. It doesn’t. It gives you licence to look at the close fringes. Because if the pack is pedalling backwards, that’s where the weak spots are. There was progress towards moving the ball [in England’s style], but not too fast, too soon. The mantra was: “Let’s get the job done.” It doesn’t matter what it looks like. No one’s going to say: “They won a World Cup but God, they played awful rugby.” Who cares? There was relief we weren’t going to go out as the worst defending champions there’d ever been.
JW The evening was incredible. We were in Marseille harbour on someone’s boat. There were half a million French watching their quarter-final against New Zealand. It was just a wonderful weekend of rugby, one of those memorable days. We got a lift home from the police to our hotel. There were no taxis but the police had one of those wagons, for when there was a riot, and drove us home in it.
SS We’ve sort of lost that ability to really enjoy victories. At least dwell in the moment for a bit, otherwise, what the hell is the point? I think that was one of the stand-outs from that World Cup: each time we got a step closer, we enjoyed it. I didn’t get a lift back to the hotel in the police wagon, though. I acquired an abandoned moped.
Semi-final: England 14-9 France, Paris, 13 October
France are buoyant after beating New Zealand and, as hosts, are regarded as heavy favourites in Paris. But England’s run is destined to continue thanks to an early Josh Lewsey try and the boot of Jonny Wilkinson.
PS A tough game again. Fine margins. They pinned us back in the last 10 minutes, but defensively we stayed strong. It was that momentum from the Australia game: we smashed everything, but in the first half we went for it, too. We got our tails up, kicked a few points. France were known for giving away a lot of penalties. We kept clocking up points and in the last 20 they came back. That was the toughest match of the last three, I didn’t think the final was as tough as the pool game against South Africa.
JW We played a very controlled game. The French were big favourites and maybe as a result didn’t take the risks they did the week before [against the All Blacks]. We had our simple gameplan and it carried the day. It was a classic knockout, high-pressure game. We were just holding on, France were a powerful team with a very strong pack. Sometimes you just hold in there and fight to the end. Even now in France some people mention the tap tackle. In England, too. It’s a shame, because I love tackling and to be remembered for a tap tackle is not that great. [I’d prefer] something a bit more crushing than my middle finger touching Vincent Clerc’s heel.
SS Your aim with France, historically at least, was to try to get them to self-implode. Especially when expectations are high and they’re on home turf. You want the crowd to start booing them. That never happened: it was an incredibly tight contest. But again, it was the knowledge that if we really screwed them up front, there was every chance with Jonny’s incredible ability to kick under pressure, we’d squeeze a victory.
Final: England 6-15 South Africa, Paris, 20 October
Five weeks before, a place in the final had seemed an impossibility after England’s crushing pool defeat by the Springboks. Now they face South Africa again, 80 minutes from winning consecutive World Cups.
PS We should have won. South Africa had a good mindset and their confidence sort of took them through it. There was the decision over the [Mark] Cueto try, but we had a few other chances we should have capitalised on. South Africa are clinical, aren’t they? Maybe I’m biased, but we gave a great account of ourselves and could have won it if things had gone our way.
JW I came on with about 20 minutes to go. I remember [the hooker] George Chuter didn’t pass to me when I would have gone through this sweet gap just outside the 22. Who knows what would have happened then? I remember Matt Tait [making a line break] and the question of whether Cueto scored or not. I can’t control the referee. It was not something I was going to dwell on and a lot of the guys felt the same. I had a really bad injury: I got cleaned out in a ruck, slipped into this outrageous splits position and pulled the hamstrings off the bone on my right side.
SS It was everything you expect of a final: the pace was ridiculous. First five minutes, you wonder how you’re going to survive. You think: ‘I don’t have anything in the tank for this.’ Somehow you keep shifting your carcass around. Again, we had parity if not better against their pack, but it wasn’t to be. We were within a whisker of Cueto scoring and potentially a different result. Ultimately, if you looked at both teams over the tournament, did South Africa deserve to win? Yes.
Brian Ashton was sacked in 2008, replaced by Martin Johnson, whose side were eliminated by France in the quarter-finals in 2011. Joe Worsley is now Georgia’s defence coach, preparing for Pool C matches against Australia, Wales, Portugal and Fiji. Paul Sackey is developing an immersive virtual reality stadium experience, Vie, and Simon Shaw is president of Love of the Game, a campaign to reduce concussion-related issues across sport.
