Dan Cole set for shock Rugby World Cup return 12 YEARS after first tournament with England

The 36-year-old was dropped for three years after England lost the 2019 World Cup final but he looks set to start alongside Alex Mitchell against Argentina

Owen Farrell says high tackle that led to World Cup suspension ‘a mistake’

Dan Cole is set for an astonishing Rugby World Cup comeback - with Alex Mitchell joining him in a shock England line-up.

Cole, the great survivor of English rugby, is 36 and playing his fourth World Cup against all the odds. Mitchell, 10 years his junior, was called up as an emergency replacement less than a fortnight ago.

Yet both are expected to be thrust into the team for England’s crunch pool opener with Argentina at Stade Velodrome on Saturday. Mitchell leapfrogging Danny Care and Ben Youngs into the starting line-up is remarkable given he is only in France because of injury to Jack van Poortvliet.

But Cole’s reappearance is perhaps even more extraordinary given he carried the can for England’s scrum stuffing by South Africa in the 2019 final.

Dropped thereafter, he spent three years resigned to never wearing the Rose again. Now here he is, preparing to pack down for an England side out to prove they are not as bad as everyone says.

“For three of the last four years I didn’t think it would happen,” the great survivor said yesterday. “After 2019, the final, what happened, I wouldn’t say it would have been easy to pack it in, but it would have been easy just to drift.

“I still remember what went on, I haven't forgotten it. The world keeps turning but you come back from a World Cup and you have a bit of a point to prove or a grievance. You have that annoyance in yourself that you want to put things right.”

Cole is in the process of doing that. The scar left by the final will never fully heal but the opportunity to remove the full stop from that chastening World Cup experience has him excited.

“The way I have been brought through at Leicester and England, you want to put things right straight away,” he said. “I’m grateful to have this chance.”

He owes it to Steve Borthwick taking over at Leicester in 2020 and challenging him not to let it end like that. To his assistant Aled Walters laying down the gauntlet by saying ‘you can park the bus - or we can keep moving’.

Cole had held Manu Tuilagi’s phone as his team-mate jumped off a ferry into Auckland harbour at the 2011 tournament.

He was part of the England team which in 2015 became the first host nation not to qualify out of the group stages. And then there was that final in Yokohama four years ago.

“My World Cups have been very different,” said the cap centurion. “You learn a lot about what not to do rather than what you should do. 2011 taught us that if you decide to do that type of stuff you hurt the squad. It does not last for you for the day. It lasts for the rest of your career.

“You can come along for the ride; turn up, think it’s brilliant to be at a World Cup and get lost in the experience. It’s only afterwards you look back and think, ‘we fucked it up’.

“Or you turn up like 2019 and now and dive into the World Cup in terms of ‘we’re here for a purpose’. Yeah, we’re in Le Touquet and we need to relax and enjoy it, but everything comes back to the rugby."

That is the way he has been brought up, that every day you turn up and work to try to get better. He will do that again on Saturday in whatever role he is assigned in this, his 16th World Cup tie. England will hope the rest follow suit.