England rugby failure collective - Ben Foden

Northampton's England full-back Ben Foden says responsibility for the country's failed World Cup campaign must be shared by everyone involved.

Foden was speaking after damning confidential World Cup reports were leaked to The Times.

Foden told BBC Look East: "People will want to point fingers [but] there were 50 of us on the tour.

"It's all very well to point at the next guy and blame him but we have to take responsibility as a unit."

The reports publicised in The Times, which were compiled by the Rugby Football Union, the Premiership clubs and Rugby Players Association (RPA), reveal senior players, including captain Lewis Moody, argued about the amount of money the squad would receive.

Foden continued: "We were always going to take a lot of stick from media and fans alike if we didn't progress to the final and do as well as we originally hoped.

"Losing in the quarter-final put us under scrutiny. As a player I tried my hardest on the field [but] you have to take a bit of responsibility in that we made mistakes and I made mistakes, I'm only human.

"[The image of rugby players] has definitely taken a hit. That's the way the game is going now. It has gone professional and people are more in the limelight - myself included, with a girlfriend [Una Healey of The Saturdays] in the public eye, and Mike [Tindall] getting married to Zara [Phillips].

"We have to be careful but hopefully it'll be a lesson learned. You've got to do your talking on the field and if we'd went on and won the World Cup, no-one would be complaining about all these things that have happened."