One of the England’s most battle-tested veterans, tight-head prop Dan Cole has seen almost everything that test match rugby has to offer. With 108 caps and counting, the Leicester Tigers stalwart is amongst the last of the old guard, having made his England debut nearly a decade and a half ago, back in 2010.
England have not beaten Ireland in the Six Nations since 2020, with the victory coming on the road to their latest Championship title to date. Eddie Jones was at the helm of the side at that time, and found no place for Cole in his squad and instead opted for the tight-head duo of Kyle Sinckler and Will Stuart. Jones did not pick Cole after the 2019 Rugby World Cup Final defeat to the Springboks, as the prop returned to the international stage following Steve Borthwick’s appointment as England head coach.
Back to the present day and it is Sinckler that has since fallen out of the fold, with Cole firmly back amongst the test match mix at 36-years-old. Sinckler’s England future looks all but finished, as he gets set for a move to Toulon next Summer. Cole has once again stepped up to the mark, and has featured in all three of England’s fixtures so far in the 2024 Six Nations.
The Leicester man started against Scotland, and made two prior appearances off the replacement’s bench against Italy and Wales. Now, Cole is getting set for a fourth round battle with Ireland, and discussed how he will approach the match either from the kick-off, or when all eyes are on as a tempo-lifting substitute.
“How do I prepare? Coming off the bench is a specialist art because you have to come on and if you walk someone will be on you. You come off the bench and you have to add speed, add tempo, the GPS guys are on you. If you’re blowing out your a*** after five minutes but then you realise you’ve got 25 minutes to go, and if you go into a huddle and you’re out of breath and guys who have played 55-60 minutes of a Test match, they look at you like, ‘come on, mate’.
“There are different mindsets. I’m not saying when you start you feel your way into a Test match, you throw yourself in there and find the pace of the game whereas on the bench you’re watching and thinking, ‘what can I do, where can I add?’. You’re thrown into a game where the tempo is already set so you have to find that tempo quickly and stay there or try and get above it. But when you start you’re naturally in the game. You can also be on after three minutes of a game.”
Astutely aware of the dark arts of the scrum, Cole discussed the previous thoughts of his long time propping partner Joe Marler’s ‘addiction’ to the set-piece. Whilst the Leicester man did share the same love for the scrum as the Harlequins loose-head, Cole believes the enjoyment at scrum-time comes from his history of success when the referee calls ‘crouch, bind, set’.
“There is a certain weirdness that makes you want to do it, if you look at the front row in general and across history. When it’s going well, yeah, it’s quite addictive, when it’s going badly, it’s not. As a front-rower you have to have a certain resilience and work out that you have to keep going and things come good and you learn and get better. Addictive is probably the wrong word but there is a reason you do it and want to get better at it, anything you enjoy doing, you want to become good at.”
“Sometimes you’re on the bench and you look at it (the scrum) and the 50-50s go your way in the first half and in the second you know it’s probably going to swing back round, so you need to be ultra clean. Different players, different trends, you’re going against potentially the reserve bench so you have to stay engaged in the game and work out, when you come on, how best you can serve the role to help the team.”
Turning his attention to his opponents for the weekend, and Cole recognises how Ireland are the strongest side in the Six Nations. There is no denying that the visitors are carrying the tag of ‘favourites’ into this weekend’s clash at Twickenham, given their impressive run of victories against France, Italy and Wales. The prop expects a tough showing from Andy Farrell’s side, which has only lifted England’s preparations this week.
“They are a lot better (than the rest of the teams). Historically, if you look they are unbeaten in the tournament so far, they won it last year, they are a phenomenal team and it will be a tall order to stop them this weekend. That doesn’t mean we don’t prepare for being better on the day but they are a good team and they don’t have many weaknesses.”
“After a major tournament, like we had in 2015 and even 2019 (Rugby World Cups) it can be quite traumatic for everyone involved, and the way Ireland have got on with it, you have to give credit to them. There are not many teams who got out in heartbreaking fashion, in some regards, and have just bounced back and evolved the team and kept going. It shows what a good side, what a good set-up, how good the coaching staff and the players they have got shows how good they are.”
Ireland are on the cusp of achieving a historic accomplishment, in becoming the first team to win back-to-back Grand Slams in the Six Nations. The last side to achieve the feat was France, yet this came in the 1997 and 1998 Five Nations Championships, with no side able to go unbeaten for two consecutive years since Italy joined the fray in 2000. Cole admitted that this had no been discussed around the halls of Pennyhill Park, with England’s senior players more focussed on themselves than their Irish opponents.
“No, it hasn’t been discussed. We just know Ireland are a good team. Ireland at Twickenham on Saturday, we are not going out there to spoil… this is the first time it’s actually been mentioned. It’s about us and we are focussed on how we can compete with a very good side.”
“The thing with the Six Nations is that you want to win. You’re going to be judged on winning games. If you’re losing games, I could tell you that we’re evolving and getting better and that our win percentage is going up. But unless it’s actually happening on the field… the coaches know the direction we’re heading. As players, it’s about playing the game and you want to win. Ultimately, you want to evolve and win the World Cup in four years’ time, but it’s about winning games in the here and now in this Six Nations.”
“Senior players have certain areas you have to lead, I don’t think anything changes for Ireland. You try and lead in all games, all areas you can lead in. Senior players this week is probably more coming off the back of a loss the senior players step up and set the tone, this is how we are going to train, this is how we are going to prepare rather than the opposition you are playing against.”
As Cole alluded to, England come into this weekend off the back of a defeat against Scotland. The third round loss was witnessed up at Murrayfield, as Duhan van der Merwe ran roughshod on Steve Borthwick’s side. The wing’s hat-trick helped Scotland build an unobtainable lead, for an eventual 30-21 victory. Looking back on the defeat to Gregor Townsend’s men, Cole felt frustrated due to the increased amount of unforced errors his side produced in the test match North of the border.
“(I look back) With frustration. There are lessons to be learned, but it is a frustrating period of the game. We started well and that second 20 in the first half, one of the things in our game plan all week, was don’t give Duhan van der Merwe the ball in space, and we did. It is frustrating more on a personal as a player level with regards to the mistakes we made, a lot of unforced errors, knock ons and stuff, in Test match rugby you can’t.
“Test matches are an arm wrestle, there is one game I have ever played in, France in 2015 when it was like 55-35 and it was a ‘joue’ fest. International rugby is an arm wrestle and you just can’t give teams chances like that, especially against international quality players like Scotland and we did.”
“That’s what you found at the World Cup, for me especially. The warm up games were all over the place, but when we got to the World Cup we knew that if we got this, this and this right, we give ourselves the best shot to win the game. And it might be that it takes a bit of magic to win the game, but we will be in the game with 60 or 70 minutes left rather than chasing the game.
“Everyone has to understand their role within that system and what they’re doing. At certain points within the game when you’re under pressure and it’s going against you, you all have to be on the same page. That gives you a foundation to put the magic – because we’ve got some great players – on top of that. But you have to have that foundation and it takes time.”
Rounding off the discussion ahead of the weekend, Cole discussed how he recognises that there is a definite expectation that comes with playing for England. Of course the majority of supporters come into the Ireland match expecting a tough encounter, given Ireland’s status as the number two ranked side in the world. Cole recognises that on the day, test match rugby is often balanced on a knife-edge, with a single error or moment of brilliance being the decisive action of a match, regardless of the other 79 minutes of play.
“That’s the sport, that’s international rugby. We’ve all played in games where you win and you should have lost and games that you lose and should have won. Ultimately, the result is what counts and what people see, and probably what most people care about. I don’t think you guys or the public would give us an easier time if we lost by three points but scored 50.
“If we lost every game 53-50, are we going to get an easier time than if we won every game 3-0? That’s the balance. Everyone wants the perfect game, which you’re never going to get. It’s about finding a way to win games. It becomes a bit of a habit and once you get certain things in place, you can then grow your game in other areas, because teams work you out.
“They’re smart. They prepare for you. If you have one way of playing, teams will take it away and then you’re stuffed, so you need to find different solutions to different problems as the game goes on. But you’ve got to be in the system to begin with.”