England’s new vision consultant, Sherylle Calder, is to crack down on players’ use of mobile phones as she attempts to enhance their spatial awareness, a project that she believes will make them better players in time even for this year’s Six Nations Championship.

The attempt to transform players’ mobile-phone habits will be requested, rather than demanded, but there is little doubt that as Calder begins her work over the next couple of days at England’s training camp in Portugal, players will have to amend their ways with their much-loved items.

If they do agree to her methods then Calder, who worked with Clive Woodward’s World Cup-winning squad in 2003, is adamant that her tuition and Eye Gym exercises will help every player as she looks to bring about improvements in ­decision-making that will help Eddie Jones’s side to be in prime condition for the World Cup in ­Japan in 2019.

“In the modern world, the ability of players to have good awareness is deteriorating by the nature of mobile phones,” said Calder, who, at Jones’s request, will initially work only with England’s back-line players. “It is definitely so. We have seen in the last five or six years, when we assess elite players in different sports, that there is a decline in skill levels.