The fallout from England's embarrassing performance at the recent World Cup continues, with revelations the players threatened to boycott a gala dinner attended by the public over a pay dispute before flying to New Zealand for the tournament.
In news that will further damage the team's reputation, Paul Ackford inthe The Guardian writes that the move was an attempt to increase their remuneration ahead of the tournament.
But the Rugby Football Union refused to cave in to demands to add just over $100,000 to the package received by each player for participating in the tournament, and the protest came to nothing.
"I can confirm that we had meetings with the RFU in the run up to the Rugby World Cup because it was felt that the commercial balance between the players' individual rights and the rights given to the RFU had got out of kilter," Damian Hopley, the chief executive of the Professional Rugby Players' Association, told The Guardian.
England were knocked out of the tournament in the quarter-final by France. Making the knockout stage was an achievement in itself considering their controversy-laden progression.
The tour lurched from Mike Tindall's antics with a mystery blonde in a Queenstown nightclub, to several players making inappropriate comments to a Dunedin hotel worker, to Jonny Wilkinson illegally swapping balls during a match, to centre Manu Tuilagi jumping off a ferry into the Auckland Harbour.
