Lack of trust, and respect, for Martin Johnson by some of the England squad led to the team's downfall at last year's World Cup in New Zealand, says the country's most-capped hooker, Steve Thompson.
Thompson, a vital part of the 2003 World Cup-winning squad, said the key difference between that victorious team and the one in 2011, of which he was also part, was that the players didn't have the 'single-mindedness' of the class of 2003 and failed to reciprocate the trust and belief manager Johnson had placed in them.
'At the time he [Johnson] thought the players would respect him the way he respected them and I don't think that was the case. His downfall was that he trusted the players totally, but they were not reciprocating that,' said Thompson.
'Some of the players said the right things to him [Johnson], so he thought he was hearing the right things, while they were doing different things to what they were saying. He trusted and respected the players, but they didn't return that.'
Thompson, who won 73 caps for England and a World Cup medal, arrived in Hong Kong for the first time on Tuesday for the GFI HKFC Tens, where he is an ambassador for the Christina Noble Children's Foundation.
An uncompromising front-row forward, Thompson missed the 2007 World Cup after retiring with a serious neck injury. But in 2009, Johnson gave him a surprise call-up and the giant hooker returned to the coal face. He was one of the few veterans left, and a diehard fan of Johnson, but even his inspirational presence couldn't lift England, who were embroiled in controversy after controversy from the time they landed in New Zealand.