Players not coaches should be blamed for failure – Haskell

The hosts were knocked out of the competition by successive defeats to Wales and Australia before signing off with a meaningless rout of minnows Uruguay in Manchester on Saturday.

The trip north was the first time the squad had left their Surrey training base and the wisdom of remaining isolated while a World Cup being acclaimed as the greatest yet unfolded has been questioned.

“It’s been a weird World Cup for me. I haven’t seen a lot of rugby outside of England, so it hasn’t really felt like a World Cup,” Haskell said.

“It will be interesting to leave camp, go back to my club and watch some of the World Cup – just get into that World Cup mode again.”

Haskell has no regrets over sharing a stage with Take That for England’s high-profile official send-off despite the failure to progress from the group stage.

Members of the squad gathered at a sold-out The O2 to join the British pop band for a glitzy night of celebration held the week before the tournament began.

“Every team needs a send-off and ours was a great event. I know what you’re alluding to – with all the grandeur, was it fitting for a team that got knocked out at the pool stage?” Haskell said. “But it was an amazing event and it was great to connect with the fans.

“We did a whole load of meet-and-greet stuff and it was nice to give people an insight into what the team is all about.

“You need to break down those barriers between players and fans and I thought that event was a great success.

“But it’s the old adage – if you talk the talk, you’ve got to deliver.”

Haskell believes it is the players and not the coaches who should be blamed for England’s World Cup failure.

“Coaches are good – but they can’t control a game from the stand however good they are. It’s the players who have to go on to the pitch and perform,” Haskell said.

Meanwhile. World Rugby insist the injury levels seen during England 2015 to date are not “extraordinary in any way” and are in line with previous World Cups.

The total number of withdrawals from the competition so far is 21, whereas in 2011 the figure for the entire event read 19.

Both figures are considerably lower than eight years ago when 37 players were forced home early.

England’s defeat to Wales and Ireland’s victory over France were particularly attritional, but World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper insists the attention on those games has led to the belief that the injury rate has increased.

“Our early indications are that England 2015 is not tracking any differently to any other tournament in the past,” Gosper said.

“Visually it is looking more serious because of the size of two of the games where injuries have been happening, but our monitoring is not showing the number to be extraordinary in any particular way.

“Let’s wait until the tournament is over before doing a full analysis. We want to make sure it’s evidence based rather than emotionally based because player welfare is our 
No 1 priority.”