Bristol director of rugby Richard Hill has echoed the unifying comments of England captain Phil Vickery after criticising the "disloyalty" of players who air grievances against their coaches in public.
There has been close scrutiny in the days since England lost the World Cup final 15-6 to South Africa of comments made by the likes of Mike Catt and Lawrence Dallaglio on the leadership of England coach Brian Ashton during the tournament in France.
But skipper Vickery, who like Catt and Dallaglio was dropped during the tournament only to win his place back in time to lead the side during the knockout stages, has insisted Ashton should be backed by the Rugby Football Union.
Like him, Hill believes the country should band together following England's surprising surge to the final in Paris rather than focus on the negatives.
Speaking at the launch of the Heineken Cup in Cardiff yesterday, he said: "I would endorse what Phil Vickery has said about Brian Ashton. A lot of things go on in rugby clubs and he made a very important point.
"As an example, we've got 54 players at Bristol and you can never keep that number happy.
"And you can never keep the whole World Cup squad happy because everyone wants to play in the starting XV and even in that starting line-up they will have ideas about how they want to play or get their involvement in the game.
"They may not like the fact the coach is telling them, 'you're not going to be doing this', but you have to respect what the coach says and go along with it.
"It is always a bit disappointing to see players piping up and showing a bit of disloyalty to what goes on behind closed doors. What happens behind closed doors has to be kept behind them and not be for public consumption."
Some of Dallaglio's more scathing comments have come in the form of excerpts from his new book and while Hill accepts such things will happen he refuses to believe it is the best way to proceed.
"Unfortunately, an autobiography lends itself to a few home truths. It's a shame when it happens in sport, particularly when a team has done really well.
"It is disappointing and I think I share the views of most people who believe it's not the right way to go about it."
Ashton's predecessor Andy Robinson, now Edinburgh's director of rugby, is in agreement insisting that the ups and downs of player-coach relations should be kept private.
Robinson said: "There will be times you'll make mistakes (as a coach) and times you'll do really well and all those aspects have got to stay within the camp.
"That's part of the bond of being part of a team, in my opinion. Having disagreements is part of it.
"I very rarely criticised England players in the press. I don't think I've ever done that and I won't. It's part of a coach's job and you can do it face-to-face, one-on-one, but I don't think people should be making statements out of that scenario."
More news from SportingLife.com
