It was a throwaway line made, Nick Easter, suspects to a couple of close teammates that knew he was being “facetious”.
The 2011 World Cup was pretty forgetful for England. Having claimed the Six Nations title, six months previous, Martin Johnson’s men went to New Zealand as the northern hemisphere side to watch.
England topped their pool – Chris Ashton scoring six tries along the way – but their narrow wins over main rivals Argentina and Scotland were dour affairs. That trend continued in the quarter finals when France eeked out a 19-12 victory and few shed a tear for the exit of the former champions (2003) and finalists (2007).
The two headline grabbers from England were for off-field activities. There was the ‘dwarf-tossing’ in Queenstown and a post-tournament player review that was leaked to the media and did serious reputational damage.
One of the findings from that review was a comment attributed to then Harlequins back-row Nick Easter. After the defeat to France, Easter was said to have declared, “There’s £35,000 just gone down the toilet.” He was allegedly referring to the bonus payment English players would have received for reaching the last four.
The former Quins and England star, who is now coaching with the Sharks in South Africa, expanded more on that infamous tale when he appeared on House of Rugby, JOE’s rugby show.
“Well,” Easter began, “I probably said that.
“We talked about that Australia game [in the 2007 World Cup] and Mark Regan is walking around with Matt Stevens going, ’16 bags. 16 bags!’ after we won it, you know, to go through to the next round.
“Players before that France game were going. ‘We’ve gotta win this Minty. It’s 35 grand, innit?’ But that’s not your motivation when you are out there. It’s the most pathetic thing.
“The most disappointing thing about all of that is that it was Ian Stafford that phoned me up and asked about it. I never came in [to the dressing room] and said it in front of everybody. It would have been in the corner, or something like that. Gallows humour; being facetious.
“I was absolutely as disappointed as everyone else with going out in a quarter final. You’re there [in the dressing room] and it’s probably an hour or an hour and a half later and you’re maybe showered or still in your kit, disappointed and still chatting away – ‘Flipping hell, this that’ – as you do when you lose big games and you’re out of a tournament. And I probably would have said it to someone who would have know about the facetiousness of the remark.
“I’m just disappointed that whoever overheard it, or thought they overheard it, actually believed it.”
Easter believes that ‘everyone looks for little things’ when a team is unsuccessful and that remark was ‘a storm in a teacup’ for a few weeks that many hung around that England squad like a millstone.
New Zealand went on to beat France in that final and Easter claims that even a post-tournament review for the All Blacks would find a few disgruntled players that struggled for game-time.
As for Easter, he did not play for England again until February 2015. Stuart Lancaster brought him in from the cold for that year’s Six Nations and he finished out his international career at the 2015 World Cup. That tournament is a whole other story for a whole other day.
Episode 12 sees Alex Payne joined by Nick Easter and Rob Vickerman to discuss Steve Diamond’s press-room clash, players seeing out contracts, coaching in South Africa and an infamous story from the 2011 World Cup.
