Roger Alton Roger Alton

The real England team is playing for Stuart Lancaster

Our rugby players seem to be transformed characters – with a true comradely spirit

England scrum half Danny Care Photo: Getty 
issue 14 June 2014

A revealing handwritten letter emerged at the weekend from the England scrum half Danny Care, who wasn’t playing in the first Test against New Zealand, to his Harlequins and England colleague Joe Marler, who very much was. And how! ‘Joe, Just wanted to wish you all the best when you step on the battlefield tonight,’ wrote Care. ‘Go hard my friend, I wish I could be out there in the trenches alongside you.’ Say what you like about the military metaphor — and I think it’s bang-on for a match against the All Blacks — that note says as much about Stuart Lancaster’s England as a whole forest of commentary.

The comradely spirit, this band of brothers and all that, is to Lancaster’s immense credit and a world away from previous ego-filled teams to tour New Zealand. At the 2011 World Cup, England spent most of the time in bars tossing dwarves or snogging mystery blondes, when they weren’t chucking themselves off ferries or generally mucking about.

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