Brown reveals his take on row at end of England career before 2019 World Cup

Fresh claims have emerged regarding the incident which contributed to the omission of Mike Brown and Ben Te’o from Eddie Jones’s squad in the lead-up to the 2019 Rugby World Cup and effectively brought both players’ international careers to an abrupt close.

England’s long-time full-back Brown, who is now playing at Newcastle Falcons, has gone public for the first time on what he says sparked the well-publicised spat during England’s training camp in Italy before the tournament. Among his allegations is that a third player, Maro Itoje, unintentionally fuelled the situation during a boozy team social gathering.

According to Brown, Itoje was in high spirits and was going around “whacking people in a fun, jovial way”. Brown, however, was not amused – “He hit me very hard [on my chest], hard enough to leave a massive handprint” – and says Te’o spotted his frustration. “Ben kind of cottoned on to that and then for the rest of the time decided he would try and wind me up,” Brown told RugbyPass’s Jim Hamilton in a Rugby Roots interview looking back on his career.

“It was unfortunate really. We’d had a really intense two-week period in Treviso in our World Cup camp. The training was the toughest I’ve ever experienced in my life and we hadn’t done too much socially away from it. Some guys had a few too many.”

At one stage, Brown alleges, Te’o stumbled over a table and knocked over some drinks which prompted two younger players to intervene and ask him to chill out. “I don’t think he liked that because they were two young guys and it wound him up a bit,” Brown said.

“So then we left, early evening, late afternoon, to get on the coach. I can hear him in front of me with a group of lads. He’s going ‘I’m going to knock him out on the