Former England prop Phil Vickery urges England's younger players to use their calamitous World Cup campaign to make them stronger players in the Daily Mail.
"I’m sure some of the guys will go away from this competition with a bitter pill. It’s a long flight home. I remember being stood on that pitch in 1999 watching Jannie de Beer kick five drop goals and us crashing out of the World Cup. That stayed with me. It was the catalyst for that England team to move on and realise as players where we were in the scale of world rugby - not Six Nations, but world rugby. It was the night we realised we weren’t really that good and had failed to compete on the world stage. Clive Woodward, his coaches and the players turned around and did something about it.
This time England were guilty of knock-ons and poor passes that simply shouldn’t happen at this level. There are issues with this team, they just cannot seem to execute properly on the field. My message to the young England players in that side is remember defeat because it is a horrible feeling. I’ve been through it, I know. Use it as a watershed moment.
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