So the cat - a particularly smelly one - is out of the bag. Take cover, Mr Rob Andrew, Mr Brian Smith...

"Among the most disturbing revelations were the comments provided anonymously by the players. A selection appear below:

On the pre-tournament preparation:

"It wasn't hard, it was just LONG. We felt physically and mentally drained at the end."

"The man-management was absolutely terrible."

"All the plans we'd worked on for weeks suddenly went out the window because they didn't happen to work in one game."

"There were two massive playbooks, which many players didn't look at because it was in too much depth."

"There wasn't enough focus on basic skills."

On the performances at the World Cup

"To go into World Cup games not having a game-plan, any structure or clear idea of what we were going to do in attack was astonishing."

"I really can't believe we lasted as long as we did in the tournament. We played like crap."