24 Nov 2011

Leaked reports on England's troubled World Cup

2:21 pm on 24 November 2011

Confidential reports on England's troubled Rugby World Cup campaign, leaked to the British media, contain shocking revelations of internal divisions.

The Times newspaper has obtained various reports on England's World Cup campaign which reveal that captain Lewis Moody and other "senior players" were heavily criticised by some of their team-mates and the England Rugby Union's director of elite rugby Rob Andrew.

Manager Martin Johnson was considered weak in dealing with off-the-field problems, and his assistant coaches were at each others' throats and were sub-standard.

And a selection of comments provided anonymously by the players included criticism of the quality of coaching as worse than club standard, game plans they'd worked on for weeks went out the window when they didn't work in one match, and too many players were chasing endorsements.