I was on Mike Tindall’s dwarf-tossing ‘stag do’ at Rugby World Cup where England team-mate got nicked – we f***ed up
DAN COLE still regrets his part in one of the most shameful World Cups in sporting history.
The England prop, 36, is at his fourth global tournament and has seen the good, the bad and the very ugly of the competition.
As a youngster in 2011, Cole was involved in the trip that became known as ‘Mike Tindall’s stag do’, while Manu Tuilagi jumped into Auckland Harbour and was nicked and detained by police for one hour.
That New Zealand jolly also saw England lads on the lash in Queenstown, where they went to a dwarf-tossing event at a local boozer.
Four years later England crashed out of their own tournament and Cole had a personal nightmare when they got to the final in 2019.
On as a sub for Kyle Sinckler in the Yokohama showpiece, Cole got hammered by South Africa in the scrums as England lost 32-12.
He never played under ex-boss Eddie Jones again.
But 2011 is one that sticks out, with England made to look a laughing stock on the pitch and then off it.
Cole said: “As a young person, you learn. The squad learnt what you can and can’t do and if you decide to do that type of stuff, you hurt the squad. It does not last for you for the day, it lasts for the rest of your career.
“There’s a lot of stuff not to do. With World Cups, one of the things I’ve learnt, particularly with 2011, is you can come along for the ride. You turn up, think it’s brilliant to be at a World Cup and get lost in the experience.
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“Or you turn up like 2019 and now — and dive into the World Cup in terms of, ‘We’re here for a purpose’.
“When you’re young, like I was in 2011, everything just washes into one, ‘Oh, we’re in Auckland, oh, we’re in Queenstown’.
“You just go along with the flow and it’s only afterwards when you look back and think, ‘We fed it up’.
“If I could have my time again, I would do this or this better and that’s what you take into the next one.
“You learn a lot from what not to do rather than what you should do. I have, anyway. “We’ve always been told there’s a trust. If you f up, you’re out, basically. So no one f***s up. Or tries not to.”
After the 2019 World Cup, Cole feared he was done until Steve Borthwick and fitness guru Aled Walters turned up to take charge of Leicester.
By this year’s Six Nations he was back in the mix and won his 100th England cap against Ireland in March, thanks to a blast by Walters.
Cole added: “You come back from a World Cup and you have got a bit of a point to prove or a grievance.
“You have that annoyance in yourself that you want to put things right.
“After Steve took over the club, he laid down a challenge. Aled as well. I remember Aled saying, ‘You can park the bus or we can keep moving’.
“And I thought, ‘We have got something to buy into’.
“I have kids and if I have had a bad day, they don’t care, they are just happy to have you home. When you get older, you learn that ability to switch off.”