How being ‘terrible’ during the Rugby World Cup warm-ups was all part of England’s plan

England’s head of strength and conditioning Aled Walters has revealed that he expects the Red Rose players to reap the benefits of a masterplan to perfect their fitness for the Rugby World Cup in France.

One of the features during England’s Rugby World Cup warm-up matches was the superior conditioning of the opposition while England head coach Steve Borthwick’s charges appeared to be struggling en route to defeats against Wales, Ireland and Fiji.

England’s fitness levels criticised

While working as a pundit, former Ireland wing Simon Zebo even said that England appeared to lack energy en route to their 29-10 loss to the men from the Emerald Isle in their clash in Dublin last month.

However, it was a different story in their World Cup opener against Argentina as England’s fitness carried them to a 27-10 triumph despite playing most of the match with 14 men after Tom Curry was sent off.

And Walters believes England’s fitness levels will reach its peak in France.

“In the Ireland week – and you might think this is the most ridiculous thing to do – when you look at the GPS data we more-or-less played a game on the Tuesday before we played Ireland on the Saturday,” hesaid.

“It was actually quite amusing, seeing the reaction. People are going to be worried, aren’t they?

“They were thinking ‘there’s a World Cup around the corner and they look terrible. They don’t look fit. They look terrible – they’re lacking energy’. But we knew exactly what was coming and the players did as well.

“Do you get confidence from that? Yes. We lost but we went to one of the hardest places to go to. It serves as preparation going into Argentina and then Japan on Sunday.

“To get someone fitter you almost have to dig them into a hole first to allow them to recover and then come out stronger. That’s a big thing.

“The guys that go to the Tour de France, that’s not the first time they’ve worked really hard. They’ve worked incredibly hard in the mountains. Were they unfit six weeks ago? No, they were just under-recovered.

Fittest version seen when fully recovered

“What happens when you are fully recovered and your tank is full and you are full of juice, that’s when you see the fittest versions of your team and squad.

“What we’ve done is put them into such a hole in pre-season that they will only reap the rewards of that work. We saw the start of it on Saturday against Argentina. The fresher they get now, the stronger they will be.”

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