- Dan Cole speaks to RFU.com about his formative years in the Championship
- The challenge is right up there physically says England prop
Hard-hitting prop Dan Cole says his formative years in the second tier of rugby were crucial in his development to the England team after the 2010/11 Championship season kicked off at the weekend.
The Leicester Tigers forward has been one of England’s stand-out performers over the last year, making his debut for Martin Johnson’s side in the 2010 RBS 6 Nations just months after appearing for Nottingham in the Championship.
The 6’3”, 19-stone prop also spent two seasons with Bedford Blues earlier in his career and says being dropped in the deep end of first team rugby at Goldington Road was a great way to learn the game alongside experienced professionals.
The 23-year-old said: "Out of the academy at Leicester I was thrown in with Bedford and it was massive to be involved in a competitive rugby environment week in, week out.
"I was playing against grown men who knew their stuff, Premiership players on the way down and other players on the way up. I played with European Cup winners at Bedford which was really important in my development.
"The physical grind is certainly there, the skill level and the speed might not be up to Premiership level but the physicality is and the other facets of the game are improving all the time."
Championship rugby is a robust challenge – Cole
That physicality, such a feature of scrum-loving Cole’s game, was sharpened on hard-knock trips to the South West to face the likes of Plymouth Albion and Exeter Chiefs.
Cole believes early exposure to this type of rugby is important, especially for props, and helped kick start his rapid rise to the England XV.
He added: "Technically there is quite a lot that goes into scrummaging and to learn you’ve got to do it. If I’d been thrown straight into the Premiership against world-class players I might have lost confidence but in the Championship – even though I still got stuffed – you can develop week by week.
"You play different types of teams: Plymouth were basically a 10-man team, mauling everything, whereas others like Nottingham like to open up the field and play.
"For a prop the ins and out of rucking, mauling and scrimmaging were tested to the max.
Cole, who has seven caps and, in scoring a try against Ireland in 2010 RBS 6 Nations, become the first England prop to touchdown in a Test for 42 games, never expected to be an regular starter so soon after appearing in the Championship:
"I took it one game at a time and tried to play the best I could whether it was for Nottingham or Leicester and ended up where I am now with good luck or other people’s misfortune but I took the chance when it came along."
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