1 year ago
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Is Dan Cole the future of English rugby? The 35-year-old prop laughs at the question but the second coming of Old King Cole is a genuine possibility. Having been overlooked for three years, the tighthead’s prospects have been enhanced significantly since the Leicester trio of Steve Borthwick, Kevin Sinfield and Richard Cockerill took over the national team. “So if I’m not picked now …,” he says, chuckling, as wryly self-deprecating as ever.
It would be some comeback given what happened last time he represented England. The South African “bomb squad” made mincemeat of the red rose scrum in the World Cup final in Japan in 2019 and Eddie Jones did not select the crouching Tiger again. But top-class English tightheads remain relatively scarce and Bath’s Will Stuart is injured, giving Cole one last window of opportunity to try to squeeze through.
With Cole not involved in Leicester’s European Cup game under Clermont’s Friday night lights, there should also be no late injury scare to ruin his chances of being named in Borthwick’s first England Six Nations squad on Monday. The former attended a preliminary fitness testing session last week and renewed a few laconic acquaintances. “No one’s ever happy to see me, but I didn’t feel like totally the old man.”
More seriously, though, Cole thinks there are two good reasons why he still has something to contribute. The first is that age has not obviously hindered three of his Tigers’ colleagues – Richard Wigglesworth has only just packed up playing at 39, Jimmy Gopperth is the same age and Ben Youngs is 33 – with improved recovery techniques helping to prolong careers. “People are better looked after injury-wise so people can play longer,” says Cole. “Even if you degrade slightly physically, you can be great communicators. Was it Teddy Sheringham who said the first two yards were in his head? Not so much for me, but for others.’
The other important factor is the way the game is evolving. “Look at how important the scrum is,” he says. “If you win a penalty at the scrum, you kick to the midfield. Win a penalty from the maul and you kick into the 22. Then you maul and pound the line. A lot of the game is spent in those areas of the field. Three or four years ago, every scrum was a penalty. The game has moved away from that.”
Cole is the first to admit that playing alongside powerful teammates such as Julián Montoya and Jasper Wiese makes life far easier. Without that pair carrying forcibly over the gain-line, Leicester have toiled lately. The beauty of Cole, though, is his vast set-piece experience. If picked, he believes he can help Borthwick’s mission to stabilise and stiffen England’s foundations. “Knowing Steve, nothing is done on a whim and he’ll have a plan. He’ll find a way to get the team aligned to win rugby matches.”
The seasoned front-rower, who has won 95 England caps plus three for the British & Irish Lions, does concede his 2019 experience took a while to recover from. “Something like the World Cup final happens and you instantly think: ‘Right, get back on the horse and put it right.’ You want to continue the good times but it didn’t happen. You’re the only change to the squad. Brilliant. But you accept it. I’m at ease with it.”
It would not be the end of his world if he now misses out again. “Not getting picked or getting picked doesn’t define you. I’ll still have children to go home to and I’ll still have teammates here. I still have a life here. It’s not for me to cry about.”
With another Six Nations possibly on the horizon, however, he sounds distinctly like a man with more in him. “You always want to play for England. I’m pretty sure when I’m 70 years old I’ll be saying: ‘Oh I want to play for England.’”
If it happens, he hopes it will give his six-year-old twins a better grasp of his heavy-duty day job. “I remember going to work with my dad, who was a civil engineer, when I was five or six and understanding that you work and that’s why you have what you have. With the kids growing up, you want them to appreciate that.
“They see you play rugby in front of 20,000 people and think: ‘That’s brilliant.’ They don’t realise you’re bent in two [at training] on a Tuesday morning and you can’t walk on a Wednesday morning. It’s nice for me to show them Daddy’s a rugby player but you have to work hard for it.”
If Cole does enjoy a Test recall, it could not happen to a better rugby man.
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