The fear of an internal implosion shaped England captain Ben Stokes’ silence as Australia tightened its grip on the Ashes.

England’s nightmare tour Down Under came to a close on Thursday when the Aussies secured a 4-1 series victory at the SCG.

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It was England’s best away Ashes since 2010-11, breaking their match drought by winning the Boxing Day Test and posting more than 300 four times – a feat they hadn’t achieved here once since that summer.

But with the world-class players Australia had out, the defeat will sting as much as the whitewashes of the past.

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When Australia claimed victory in Brisbane to go 2-0 up, Stokes told broadcasters at the post-match ceremony his dressing room had no place for “weak men”.

But, after the final day of the summer, Stokes said he was reserved in his feedback, concerned there could be a dressing room collapse.

“It’s a very tough and interesting thing to get right, you’re constantly thinking about things to say to individuals, constantly thinking of things to say to a group,” he said.

“The hardest thing to sort of get right is, ‘Is that message you’re delivering right now, is that going to do them more good or not what you want it to?’ If that makes sense.

“When you’re in the middle of the series, particularly when you go two-nil down and know you need to win the next three games to win a series, you’re always a bit mindful and a bit cautious of saying completely what’s on your mind.

“Because you don’t want things to just implode in the dressing room, so look, there will be a few things that the senior guys come together and say and be quite honest and truthful together going forward.

“But if I am being completely honest, doing something like that in the middle of a series, I personally, think it would have done more harm than good.”

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England’s next Test series is against New Zealand back home in June.

Stokes stopped short of making any bold declarations surrounding his team make-up but expected the upcoming review to have a positive influence.

“Six months is a lot of time for a lot of work to be done and a lot of conversations that, I guess, you need to have with elite sportsmen when things haven’t gone too well,” he said.

“That filters throughout the whole group, it’s not just the players, even myself, I have not been up to the levels I expected of myself as an all-round player and as a captain.

“But I can tell that to myself, there’s nothing wrong with being truthful to yourself and there’s also nothing wrong with being truthful to teammates.

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“At the end of the day, what I want and what I care about is making sure while I am in this job I doing everything I possibly can to allow players to become as good as their talent is.

“Sometimes speaking the truth and saying stuff you don’t want to hear is sometimes the best thing.

“I have been told a lot of things over my career that I thought was a bit over the top but I can look back on those moments … and go, ‘I was told that because that person genuinely wanted the best for me.”