Former England captain Dylan Hartley says a tumultuous relationship with coach Eddie Jones ended with him feeling ‘like a piece of meat, thrown in the bin because it was past its sell-by date’.

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Hartley opened up about life in the England camp, gruelling training regimes and some of the treatment meted out by Jones.

Hartley credited Jones for ‘giving him a career’ and had no hesitation in saying he was the best coach he ever played for.

Touching on the infamously uncompromising training regiments, Hartley said as captain he was expected to train harder than anyone, but that Jones would grill him in private, often saying: ‘‘That was f***king s**t, mate. That’s f***king s**t… you’re s**t. You shouldn’t be here.’

In Hartley’s book, he also highlighted how he was informed he wouldn’t be going to the World Cup after battling with a knee injury.

‘You’re f***ked, mate,’ Jones apparently told him over the phone. ‘Even by the standards of the 6am texts he delivers while running on the treadmill, which make the recipient’s balls tighten and the brain melt, this phone call was brutal … He was effectively ending my England career with three words,’ Hartley wrote.

Reflecting on it now, Hartley says he felt ‘like a piece of meat, thrown in the bin because it was past its sell-by date’.

He added that by the end he’d ‘had enough of being governed by Eddie’.

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