He is known as rugby’s Mr Angry – and Mike Brown has clearly reached boiling point over the fall-out from England’s World Cup debacle.

On the leaks which have come out of the squad, most notably the revelation players lost out financially after buying shares on the advice of kitman Dave Tennison, the Harlequins full-back told the Telegraph of his team-mates: “There is no trust no as far as I’m concerned.”

The longer the inquest into the early World Cup exit led by RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie dragged on, the more certain it became the leadership of the England team would pay the price, with head coach Stuart Lancaster deciding on Wednesday his position had finally become untenable.

But haven’t we been here before? The latest campaign may not have been beset by the kind of activities which saw Martin Johnson walk before he was pushed in 2011, but the players have to take some responsibility for Lancaster’s demise.

Mike Brown will end Harlequins career as a legend

Manu Tuilagi and Dylan Hartley may have been effectively banned from the tournament for their misdemeanours, but the message still doesn’t seem to have got through and, as Brown suggests, those who were part of the squad should not be looking for scapegoats now.

“It is going to be hard for me to call anyone team-mates until we meet up,” he added, citing how at club level with Quins everything is built on trust. “I don’t think anyone was good enough to be piping up saying: ‘This was wrong, that was wrong’.”

With the number of players Lancaster has used over the past four years, it was hard to keep everyone happy.

There were some justifiable gripes. Danny Care, for example, deserved an explanation why he went from number one to number three scrum-half, apparently overnight.

By holding another very public inquest rather than making a quick and decisive decision, the RFU allowed open season on Lancaster’s England making it virtually impossible for him, and possibly captain Chris Robshaw, to remain.