Mike Weston and Martin Green were swimming against the tide as they tried to prepare England for the inaugural World Cup in New Zealand and Australia. Weston (Chairman of Selectors) and Green (coach) had started building up to the tournament a year before the event.
A 17-0 defeat in Dublin, was followed by a home reverse against France. But it was be the fallout from the Battle of Cardiff that threw a significant spanner in the works. Defeated and disgraced, England banned four players, and with three months to go until the World Cup, England's plans laid in tatters.
Without a win, indeed without a try in the championship, England were now in search of a captain to lead the team in the Calcutta Cup and the World Cup, in place of the banned Richard Hill. Step forward winger Mike Harrison. Skipper of Yorkshire and the North, Harrison recalls his surprise at being asked to captain his country.
"I think they must have gone through the list 1-15 and I imagine I was their 15th call after everyone else had said no. I was gobsmacked. It was not something I ever expected." With just four wins in the championship since 1983, expectations were at least realistic as Harrison led his team out against Scotland.
The subsequent 21-12 victory papered over a few cracks, with Harrison claiming that England could win the World Cup. "Realistically, I think we can beat anyone. Obviously playing Australia on May 23 represents a different challenge, but after our performance against the Scots we have something to build on."
No one really knew what to expect regarding the first World Cup. At first, the RFU stated that caps would not even be handed out to any English player who played during a World Cup match, feeling that the souvenir cap given to every player at the tournament would suffice. The decision was reversed, but there were other issues surrounding the new tournament.
England's Simon Halliday had to make himself unavailable for selection, due to the fact that he was a partner in a firm of stock brokers, and could not get leave, as questions were raised about paying players compensation during overseas tours. And then there was the television coverage of the event.
It's amazing to consider this, but England's opening World Cup match against Australia was not shown live by the BBC. Mick Cleary writing in The Times highlighted "the BBC's ambivalent attitude towards rugby union”, which prompted a response from the BBC Head of Sport Jonathan Martin. However, his admission that showing live World Cup matches would break into the established schedules of Open University programmes hardly helped his argument.
With Japan and the USA drawn alongside England and Australia in Pool 1, the bare minimum expected of Green's team was a quarter final place, and most saw a semi-final spot as a realistic target. The 1987 championship may have been poor, yet the Scotland win provided hope, and a five-day training camp in Portugal prior to the event was seen as another useful building block.
Strangely, expectations grew after the 19-6 loss to Australia. Level at 6-6 after 50 minutes, England were rocked when referee Keith Lawrence awarded a controversial try to David Campese. But in defeat there was an unusual amount of credit bestowed upon Green's men. If anything, the loss made the eventual exit harder.
"They gave their most impressive performance since the 1980 Grand Slam," Tony Bodley stated in the Express, adding that "Mike Harrison's new-look team are dangerous." The Mail's Terry O'Connor joined in: "English rugby was reborn in the sunshine of Sydney's new rugby stadium." The Times enthused about England's performance in the scrum, lineout, and three-quarters.
A three-day break followed to the Great Barrier Reef, as the players recharged their batteries. Harrison scored a hat-trick of tries with England scoring ten tries in their 60-7 win over Japan, and after the 34-6 victory against the Americans, England's skipper was in a positive frame of mind ahead of a last eight clash with Wales in Brisbane.
"There is no need to fear anyone. We can still improve. We have not realised our potential yet and don't know how good we are." Inevitably a lot of pre-match talk concentrated on fears of a repeat of the Battle of Cardiff. What followed would lead to another set of negative headlines. But this time for very different reasons.
The contest at Ballymore surely must be a contender for the worst ever World Cup match. Playing conditions were far from ideal, but the criticism later fired at England was fully justified. In the end, "Wales were marginally the better of two poor teams", as David Hands wrote in the Times. It was not a great advert for northern hemisphere rugby; more like a horror film.
Waking up in hospital during the early hours of June 8 to watch the 16-3 defeat was demoralising. Reinserting my tonsils and then getting them taken out again may have been preferable, such was the feeble display. With prop Paul Rendall temporarily off the field, Wales used their man advantage in the scrum to score a first half try through Gareth Roberts. England simply had no response.
Unforced English errors allowed an injury hit Wales team to remain in control; the scrum was dominated by Wales, despite the inexperience of props Buchanan and Young; the lineout was poor, even though Wales' Norster was hampered by a hamstring injury; tactically England seemed clueless, and Green along with Weston, who was acting as England manager during the tournament, were shell-shocked.
A try from the excellent Robert Jones put another nail in England's coffin, with the hammering confirmed when John Devereux intercepted Peter Williams' pass late on; a fitting end to a humiliating day. Understandably, the words used to describe England were not kind: inept, bumbling, fumbling, inhibited, abject, abysmal, hesitant.
"England were diabolical," former Australian fly-half Mark Ella commented. "They were just hopeless." Weston did little to sugar coat the defeat. "It was unbelievable. We are back to where we started." With boos ringing out amongst the 12,000 spectators due to the poor quality of rugby, there could be little doubt that England were near rock bottom.
Neither Green or Weston would be involved in the rebuilding process. Green was replaced as coach by Roger Uttley, and although Weston was appointed as England's first official rugby manager, he stepped down when his request for Green and Tony Jorden as selectors was refused by the RFU. Geoff Cooke stepped into the void, and the rest is history.
A revolution was taking place in the English game. The establishment of a new club league, sponsored by Courage Brewery, was another vital component in pushing English rugby down the right path. "The setting up of club leagues is the most important decision made since the RFU's inception in 1871," new RFU President John Burgess proclaimed.
The 1987 World Cup experience proved to be the point where things simply had to get better. Two further defeats in the 1988 Five Nations signalled the end for Harrison, and after a dalliance with Nigel Melville as skipper, the Will Carling reign kicked off in spectacular fashion against Australia.
The national team pulled itself off the canvas, and within four years would claim a Grand Slam and a World Cup final place. Anyone who had the misfortune to witness the bore at Ballymore might have thought you were crazy had you suggested this would happen. 1987 was bleak, the darkness before a dawn that for once did not turn out to be false.
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