The England camp is certainly a lot quieter following the recent international retirement of Joe Marler. The legendary loose-head hung up his Test match boots this past weekend, and ends his England career with an impressive 95 caps. Someone who is already missing Marler’s quick wit is Dan Cole, with the veteran prop changing up his roommate following the departure of his long time friend.
“It’s alright. Quieter. I talk to one less person, so I talk to no one.” Cole said in an England Rugby media session. “From selfish reasons you miss him, as he’s a good friend, but at the same time the team continues to move forward.
“That’s the thing with rugby, one of the weird or great things about it, that no matter the adversity you have you still turn up, train and move forward. He has gone out on his own terms, so is alive, well and healthy, so he’s still my friend but he’s not here.”
“Part and parcel of rugby is that people leave, go, come back in, which he has done 10 times.”
Marler has previously retired from international rugby, only to be brought back into the fold by the England head coaches when they needed him the most. However, it feels like this time Marler is done for good, with the torch passed on to his Harlequins teammate Fin Baxter, and Ellis Genge back and firing upon England’s loose-head.
Cole is already missing his long time friend and former Pennyhill Park roommate, with the Leicester man reunited with a old Tigers teammate in the new living arrangements.
“That was one of the first conversations I had with Joe, as he came in last Sunday. We thought we’d room together, but then he came in on Sunday night and thought ‘I’m done, I’m leaving’. He explained his reasons and all that, and I thought ‘who the f*** am I going to room with Joe! You’ve stitched me up here!
“There’s been quite a few of the young lads who want to room with me, some of the young lads. There are some snorers in camp, so they were trying to pitch, but I think it’s just done on age, so George Ford has moved up and is now with me.”
Whilst Cole and ‘Fordy’ have a strong friendship that dates back to their days together at Welford Road, it is the like-minded front rowers whom the tight-head has formed the strongest bonds with in the past. Known endearingly as the ‘Cola Bear’ by Joe Marler, Cole expressed how his previous pals at Leicester Tigers have often been those that occupied the one, two and three jerseys.
“Yes and no. Yes in some regards. I look at the people I’m friends with at the club – Tom Youngs, Boris Stankovich, Julian Montoya, there’s loads. You spend so much time together. Similar with Joe here, you have a similar mindset; there’s a reason you play in the front-row, we’re all at the back of the fitness tests.
“You probably find a similar value in each other and that kind of stuff. So in that regard, yes. Also we spend a lot of time together, training-wise. We’re together training, and in meetings, we’re sometimes different schedules at the backs and stuff, so you just naturally spend more time together. Probably because the way front rowers think and align, you’re probably naturally drawn to each other.
“Within that group, obviously you have a range of personalities; Marler at one end and myself and others at the other. But that’s the great thing about what we do.”
With Marler leaving the England camp, the 37-year-old is amongst the last of the older heads in camp as the next generation of stars continue to rise through the ranks. Cole believes that the door will always remain ajar for Marler to make a return to the England squad, with the mohawk-donning Harlequin just five Test caps away from racking up a century of appearances for his country.
“He’s retired 17 times, I’d say, yeah, it was coming. Did I think he would go last Sunday? But did I think, we’re both near the end, there we are at the beginning, that he was coming at some point, yes.
“I thought part of him wanted 100 caps, but unfortunately, he hurt his foot in the first New Zealand Test, so that would have meant extending on. You just have an inclination, but you have no control over what he thinks or does.”
“Teams evolve, teams move forward, other people have to step up. But I think the thing is it’s not about replacing like for like. If Asher (Opoku-Fordjour) comes in, it’s not about him being Marler, or when Aled (Walters – former England S&C coach) leaves, it’s not about Dan Tobin and being Aled, it’s about bringing your own personality.
“You were selected for a reason and how you can do things, and how you can help in that environment. It’s not trying to be someone else. You’re here for a purpose and a reason and whether you’re a player or staff, you have a point of difference to bring and it’s about bringing that 100% and the strength of that rather than trying to be something you’re not.”
Speaking of Asher Opoku-Fordjour, the Sale Sharks prop is considered to be one of the fastest rising stars of the Premiership, and was called into the England camp in place of the departing Joe Marler. The 20-year-old spent his first day in the Pennyhill Park camp yesterday, and Cole is already impressed by what he is seeing from the England U20s break-out talent.
“Good. well, we’ve literally just trained today, but he seems well, he’s obviously been playing fantastic in the premiership for Sale. And there’s a bit of stuff to get your mind around here, because we’re in week three, this third week of camp. But he seems to be picking up.
Ultimately, I think there’s people like him with the talent they have, is just trying to not have them think. He always gets his hands on the ball, and he carries on hitting things, and the structure is there to put people in place, to bring out their skill set. Once he gets his mind around that kind of stuff, which won’t take long, it’ll be good from the technical standpoint.”
“He’s strong, obviously very strong. Physique wise, he’s powerful on the (scrum) engagement. He’s played loose-head for the U20s, and he plays with Sale at tight-head he’s played, at least I think so. So here he is, I think he will dabble in both. He is proving himself in the Premiership.”
As Cole expressed, Opoku-Fordjour has the highly sort after ability of being able to play on both the loose and tight head sides of the scrum. There is no downplaying the complexity of alternating between the one and three shirts, with Cole rather affably putting the difference into simplistic terms for the reporting media.
“What’s the expression? It would be like wiping your a*se with your left hand.”
“As a tight-head you’re binding with your left shoulder in with the hooker, binding with your right side, your left inside foot is back, your right foot moves when you bind. Whereas loose-head it’s totally the other way round.
“If pressure comes on the tight-head the natural thing is to go left, whereas loose-head it is to go right. They are different skill-sets. But I think also bringing it back to me, I played loose-head my first year at Leicester when you only had one prop on the bench, and I think actually having some basic understanding of how to play loose-head can help you play tighthead, because if I don’t like what is happening loosehead-wise, I can do that on the tighthead.
“Young players coming through playing both sides have an appreciation of both, and they’ll find a position rather than going ‘I’m a tighthead’.”
“So, there are people who can get by playing both, but at the same time, you probably want (both). If you’ve got a really good tight-head they will say they are a tight-head, and a really good loose head. And it’s the same with loose-heads. Obviously, tight-head is lot harder, just for the record.”
Cole was unleashed off the bench in England’s recent Autumn Nations Series opener against New Zealand, and had the challenge of setting the platform for the fixture’s dramatic conclusion. The prop shed light upon how the England pack were shunted back by the All Blacks, which put insurmountable pressure on George Ford’s following drop goal, which eventually flew wide of the posts to bring an end to the game.
“We didn’t provide a very good platform to play off. We engaged and New Zealand came back with a very good secondary shove. Their bench front row are good, big men. They semi knew it was their chance to finish the game off, and they did.”
However, much like the post match reactions of his England vice-captain Maro Itoje, Cole took positive outcomes away from the narrow defeat to New Zealand. Cole believes that this England side are continuing to build in an exciting direction, and should they win the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia, no one is going to remember this Autumn defeat to the All Blacks as more than a bump in the road.
“If we had them in the bag we’d have won them. There’s a positive side to that and a negative side. The negative side is that we need to win these games, the positive side is that our game plan, the way we train, what we do is putting us in a position to win games.
“So you can look at it either but you look at three New Zealand Tests, France, Ireland, games against top four sides in the world, the game has come down to the final quarter, if not the final kick of the game. However much it hurts to lose like that, I would much prefer to be in the position when it comes down to the final kick rather than be blown out by 20 points and not have a chance.
“At some point, those games will flip. I have confidence they will because we put a lot training and effort and process into doing that. At some point it will swing around. If you look at New Zealand at the weekend and the amount of players who played in the World Cup final and the amount of caps they had, I think they’ve got a lot more than we do, especially in the starting XV so these are very good sides we’re playing against.
“Yes, you want to compete against them and play and beat them but you can also take some form of…. The easiest thing to do is say, ‘we lost at the weekend, England are crap’. Or you can look at the long-term process and building and where we’re going to and ultimately if you win the World Cup in three years’ time, no one is really bothered about losing to New Zealand by two points.
