Brendan Gallagher meets up with Brad Barritt

Brad BarrittBy my count there are nine players in the current long squad who could justifiably harbour hopes, albeit some much slimmer than others, of playing centre in the forthcoming World Cup. Which is one of the reasons why last Wednesday at Pennyhill Park, with the temperature soaring well above 30C, the England management decided to pit all those in direct competition for a place against each other in a series of physical Tests.
The results of those Tests – many done behind closed doors in England's bespoke indoor gym but others involving traditional shuttle sprints on the rugby pitch next door – remain a closely guarded secret and may or may not have an influence in selection going forward, starting with the first pruning of the squad later this week.
Testing, it should be added, always comes with something of a health warning. A series of elaborate British Cycling tests a decade ago with all the young hopefuls on the Academy,
concluded that Mark Cavendish had almost no chance of becoming a top professional sprinter let alone win 25 stages of the Tour de France with a World to boot.
For those competing for selection directly against each other testing can be an unnerving experience, especially if they are good friends and club colleagues. Any apparent weakness or deficiency is immediately noted by your fellow aspirants and those watching and monitoring on the touchline. In fact I rather suspect that what is being tested more than anything is somebody's reaction to finishing last – or indeed first – in a particular exercise. It's the competitive instincts, and the ability to keep going the extra mile and to keep improving, that are most under scrutiny.
What those cycling tests didn't record with Cavendish was the “sod you, I will work even harder and I will show the world what I can do” attitude that Cavendish took from the testing chamber and into the sporting arena.
and co will be looking for plenty of that as well Brad Barritt, like all the other England centres, has been up to his elbows in testing this week, but as you would expect from one of the most solid citizens in the England camp, he is remaining cool and objective. As much as possible he is still trying to set his own agenda, albeit in conjunction with the England's fitness experts. His harshest critic at all times will be himself.
“At this stage your only real challenge is yourself, you know where you stand,” says Barritt who, with Saracens going all the way in the Premiership, finished last season three or four weeks later than some in the England squad. “Some are further ahead than others but what counts is where you get yourself before the warm-up games and tournament starts. There is a huge amount to come and ultimately whatever you do to the best of your ability is what counts.
“As with any other player you've got that competitive streak and you don't want to be bettered so you are never going to want that or allow that. But mainly it's about pushing your body as far as it will go at this point in time.
“You have to remind yourself that everybody is going to be in different positions. You sit down with the strength and conditioning coaches and the guys who are there to manage your body and they put a great plan in place to get you in the best possible nick come the World Cup. Ultimately fitness – power, strength pace – is a tool to help you achieve your game plan but it's not the only factor in rugby.”
As he drags himself back to his hotel room at the end of another six-hour training day, Barritt might not look like it but he's enjoying the fitness boot camp massively. In a physical contact sport with a 9-10 months season such uninterrupted weeks of hard yards conditioning are gold-dust. Injury problems were an issue last season and he also took a battering physically with a nasty head wound reopening on a number of occasions and the grind of a ten-month season rarely allowed for a complete MOT and overhaul of the body.
Brad Barritt“During the season there is a lot of wear and tear.  Now we are not having those games, we are not having that day to day battering. You can build your body up, both in the weights room and out on the field, and just improve in all areas.
“The last time I had a proper pre-season like this was 2009 and that's the huge benefit of the training we are doing now. Normally you are either coming off a late end to the season if you make it to the Premiership final, or a summer tour with England and then trying to get those few weeks of downtime.
“It doesn't allow much time before the Premiership season starts so this is quite a unique situation, one I'm really keen to take huge advantage of.”
Barritt has been one of Lancaster's go-to men over the last three and half years during which time there has been no finer memory than he and Manu Tuilagi bossing it in midfield against the in 2012. You sense he remains very central to Lancaster's thinking, but the dynamics have changed recently, not least with the emergence of Jonathan Joseph as the clearcut first choice at outside centre after a startling campaign.
Barritt can play 13 or 12 but he was at inside centre in that famous win over New Zealand and that is probably his preferred position although he started in all of last autumn's internationals at outside centre, partnering Kyle Eastmond in the first two and in the last two. England's dearest wish now is to settle on the player at 12 who can best integrate with the potent George Ford-Jonathan Joseph midfield axis which could cause so much damage in the World Cup.
“I am prepared to play wherever the team needs me,” continues Barritt. “The majority of my rugby has been played at 12 and that is where I feel most comfortable but I enjoy the opportunity to play 13. I see myself as able to play both.
“I ended the autumn really well and was in good position come the game but I got injured in the European Cup fixture just before the match in Cardiff. Then I worked really hard to get back for the game only to get injured for Sarries against . It was frustrating, but with experience you learn to respond well to these things and having that resilience is what carries you through.”
Unfairly, Barritt is labelled as a defensive centre, for no other reason that I can see other than England are generally more organised and solid in that respect when he is on the field. He can attack perfectly well as we have seen many times but despite England's talk about looking to play a more expansive attacking game that will see the ball in the play for 40 plus minutes, defence is still going to be vital.
In fact, possibly more so than ever, because if you are looking to match New Zealand in approach half of that time will be spent defending for your lives – that's the flip side of a more attacking emphasis.
Barritt says:  “A lot of defence is about getting back into position as quickly as you can, that is usually the mantra in terms of finding your place in the shape in attack and finding your place in defence as quickly as you can and responding to what you have done in the last phase of play.
“Ultimately, though, in defence it comes down to that physicality in the tackle – it is not just running and getting in positon it is the impacts you make and how it affects the attack in terms of getting the ball back in possession.”
Barritt will be 29 next month which makes him a veteran among the English backs and his experience will also count heavily. This is a man who played in a Super Rugby Final eight years ago and knows how campaigns are put together.
He has played in a Saracens team that strode to the top of the table in the Premiership regular season only to blow it in the play-offs while last season Sarries sneaked into the play-offs in fourth place yet then got it gloriously right in the two most important games of all, against Northampton and Bath.
He also desperately wants to make his mark in the World Cup. As an eight-year-old he remembers sheltering from the tropical monsoon at King's Park Durban in 1995 as the stadium's women cleaners tried to clear the waterlogged pitch with their brooms.
Twelve years later, having established himself in the XV he was at a friend's 21st birthday party down the coast from Durban and got some odd looks when he groaned and complained about Mark Cueto's ‘try'. By then, as a British passport holder with British grandparents, he had made the decision to seek his fame and fortune in England.

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