'Get in that f***ing senior team': Access all areas with England rugby's finishing school - and how they are forging our next generation of superstars

On the indoor running track at the University of Bath, Matt Ferguson is barking orders at 16 forwards set up to scrum.

‘Stay in your gun barrel!’ he shouts, as the hulking figures, led by future superstars Afo Fasogbon and Kepu Tuipulotu, prepare to pack down at England’s A team camp. A few yards away, the leaner athletes such as Noah Caluori and Adam Radwan are strapping up but Ferguson is drilling down on detail with his heavies.

‘Set! Trigger! Pull!’

England’s A team is a finishing school to prepare players for Test rugby. Some will get there sooner than others. Some will not get there at all.

But with 15 players from England’s last two ‘A’ squads going on to earn senior caps, it is proving to be a significant stepping stone in the pathway.

Daily Mail Sport has been granted access all areas behind the scenes ahead of their fixture against a New Zealand XV in Bath on Saturday - and this is what we found.

The theme for the week is ‘Take Your Shot’, with imagery of NBA star Steph Curry - the greatest three-point shooter of all time - used to bring the messaging to life.

‘We want to use this as a springboard to get in that f***ing senior team,’ Mark Mapletoft, the RFU’s head pathway manager, tells the squad in their morning meeting. ‘That’s got to be our ambition. This is one level below the top. We have got to be thinking all the time. We’re always thinking ahead of the game.

‘From an attack perspective, we want to take the space. We need to win the air. Rugby is an invasion game and we have to be able to move the game up the pitch. We’ve got some of the best aerial players in the league on our edges. Let’s create those contests.’

Before the team head outside to the pitch, the players walk through their drills on the running track.

There is one specific point that Ferguson highlights, focusing on the knee placement of the second rows.

‘Tom Harrison is the senior scrum coach and we’re doing a Diet Coke version of their scrum,’ explains Ferguson, whose full-time job is with Harlequins. ‘In a lot of scrums, particularly in the PREM, the locks start with two knees on the floor. England start with one knee, so we’re using the same basics as the seniors.

‘If you imagine your front row being the bullet loaded into the gun, your second rows and back rows are the pin who fire that forward. Being on one knee gives the best chance for the group to be stable and balanced before the engagement.

‘South Africa don’t need to worry about speed so much. If you’ve got a load of 25st men, then you can have a bit of a huff and puff and move forward. They can catch you up because they’ve got a ton of weight behind them.

‘It’s a little bit like a 100 metres start. If you want quick ball for Alex Mitchell to get it away, then you want some punch.’

Leicester winger Radwan chases a lobbed cross-field kick and Bristol No8 Fitz Harding is right behind him in support. The blueprint is exactly the same as Henry Pollock and Ben Earl’s tries in last weekend’s senior-team victory over the Wallabies.

‘The messaging is very similar,’ explains Radwan. ‘How the week is run is very similar. We try to replicate what the main squad is doing with how we play the game.’

The A-team setup is also a breeding ground for young English coaches. The likes of Ferguson, James Lightfoot Brown, James Craig and Adam Powell are all set up with a small microphone so their messaging to the players can be processed and reviewed.

‘Our mindset straight away is “Go Get ‘Em”. That dictates everything. What does that mean for you? Break into pairs for 30 seconds and discuss it,’ Powell, the defence coach from Saracens, tells the players. He immediately asks the likes of Ollie Hassell-Collins, Tom Pearson and Ethan Roots to feed back.

‘I want to be harsh on us,’ Powell. ‘I want us to hold a higher standard than we would do at our clubs. If we’re stepping up into the international arena, we need to have a higher standard.’

On the portable screen beside the pitch, Powell shows a clip of the defence being too slow to set in the previous training session. ‘Lazy,’ says centre Max Ojomoh when asked for a player’s thought on the picture.

‘The big thing I want us to get out of this is how fast we race to get set,’ adds Powell. ‘When we’re set, Afo, we start talking to each other. We start being verbally aggressive: “I’m coming… he wants a piece of it. If they want to play into that panther shed then we get them".’

He shows a video montage of players making big shots for their clubs, backed up by a high-amp soundtrack.

‘Everything happens a bit faster in international rugby,' he says. 'Defensively, what does that mean? You need to set quicker than the opposition. All that dead time, if you’ve got your head down and not looking at the pictures, is time the attack’s going to be ahead of you.

'Maybe at club level you can get away with that. As you step up, as soon as you know it the play is on you. The best defenders see pictures quickest. They race to get set, they look and they see the pictures early. Tom Curry, Owen Farrell. The world-class players are the ones who see those pictures and then bring people with them.’

They put their methods into practice before lunch, with a gathering of students on the sidelines to watch England’s next generation of stars. They gasp at Caluori’s speed down the right wing, chasing the contestable kicks that were outlined in the meeting.

‘It’s been a crazy couple of weeks,’ says Caluori, 19, who was fast-tracked into the senior squad last week after he scored five tries in his first PREM start for Saracens, against Sale, and now will start for England A on Saturday.

‘I got a call for the training development week off the back of the Sale match. I wasn’t expecting it. I was in bed on my phone and I thought, “s***, no way”. I instantly had to pack my bags and get into camp.

‘I’m always going out there trying to win the ball back. Last week, they showed clips of Joseph Suaalii in the meetings and how he goes up for the ball and tries to tap it back. I was just trying to help the boys prep for Australia and they did unreal at the weekend.

‘I’m just trying to treat every opportunity the same no matter where I play, so I don’t have those mental ups and downs. I’ve been loving every minute of it. I’m just trying to soak it up and go all out.’

Back at the team’s hotel in the city, the players relax and unwind in their makeshift team room. It is stocked with games consoles, darts boards, table tennis and recovery equipment. A similar set-up to that of the senior team.

‘It’s a big jump from club rugby so there has to be a next step,’ says Mapletoft. ‘Henry Pollock is an example of someone who played for the A team against Australia last year when he wasn’t an automatic pick for Saints. He used the A team as a springboard and by the summer, he was on the Lions tour.

'It’s about getting the right exposure at the right time for the younger players – the exposure to quick turnarounds of teams pulling together for international rugby, the short and sharp nature of being in camp. It’s also about giving opportunities to some senior players like Fitz Harding who has never pulled on an England jersey at all.’

In time, the A team could become a development tool to breed positional flexibility. Earl, for example, is a forward who England want to use as a centre, but it is a risky move to switch positions at a fixture where winning is key.

‘Longer term, the primary purpose of this is to identify gaps in the depth chart at senior level,’ says Mapletoft. ‘If we fast-forward to 2027, where are the gaps going to be? We have a centralised file that is a work in progress.

‘Steve Borthwick’s job is for the England senior team to win. Behind the scenes, other people’s jobs are to ensure there’s a steady pipeline of players. The seniors have their 50-player EPS squad.

'Within the pathway, we run teams at Under 17s, 18s, 19s and 20s. What we try to look at is where we’re deficient in the depth chart and who we’ve got coming through.

‘Fly-half is an interesting one. There’s depth at the minute with George Ford, Marcus Smith, Fin Smith and Owen Farrell but from a pathway point of view which game are we trying to win? George and Owen are north of 32 now.

‘Since Fin played for the England Under 20s in summer 2022, how many 10s are playing regular first-team rugby? None of them. All top players are coveted by teams abroad. We’ve seen that with Tom Willis. What’s to say they won’t target Fin or Marcus? On top of that, there’s the danger of injuries.

‘So, that’s something we can look into with one eye on the 2031 World Cup. Is the amount of time we spend with them right? Is it the playing opportunities? Do we bring through certain players at certain clubs?

'It could be a problematic position but equally two or three of those lads could elevate themselves up and we say, “What is all the stress about?”

'We don’t control what the clubs do with the players. That’s their decision. The A team can be an integral part of the development programme.’