Category: England Rugby

• England have favourable fixtures against Italy and Wales
• Steve Borthwick backtracks on George Furbank’s fitness

Tommy Freeman has admitted that England understand supporters’ frustrations amid a chorus of boos during the scrappy win against Scotland, but he believes Steve Borthwick’s team are still alive in the Six Nations title race after back-to-back wins.

Borthwick has revealed that Freeman’s Northampton teammate George Furbank is unlikely to feature in the final two games, against Italy and Wales, having suggested previously that he could, but England go into the second fallow week third in the table with favourable fixtures to come.

Continue reading...

England regained the Calcutta Cup in a nailbiter

10 mins. Both teams are already trading penalties at the breakdown as their combative backrows spoil possession and win turnovers. The latest is Ritchie setting up a lineout platform in the England half.

7 mins. England hit back into the 22 via lineout. There are lots of phases after the initial drive, but they are one-out runners that are being contained by the Scottish line defence. Scotland are offside and on the advantage Freeman calls for the ball close to the ruck to force over under the attention of a couple of tacklers.

Continue reading...

All the way across the field there are mouthwatering head-to-heads with players pushing for the tour to Australia

For British & Irish Lions hopefuls, time is running out. Three Test matches left to stake their claim, to catch Andy Farrell’s eye and book a place on the plane. Farrell is due to be at Twickenham on Saturday and he will be analysing everything. As a player that’s precisely where you want to be.

At this stage of the Six Nations, England against Scotland feels all the more pivotal for Lions hopefuls. We can safely say that there will be a large Ireland contingent and, unless something dramatic happens in the coming weeks, a relatively small group of Wales players. That congested middle is full of England and Scotland players and that makes Saturday’s match all the more mouthwatering.

Continue reading...

Red Rose have lost four in row against Scots, but if they can back up Les Bleus win there will be talk of top-two finish

In recent times the Calcutta Cup has morphed into the “Scottish play” the English would rather not mention by name. One Red Rose win in seven attempts and four consecutive victories for Gregor Townsend’s side has certainly been an uncomfortable sequence for those who, for decades, regarded death and taxes as only marginally more inevitable than Scotland losing down south.

So much for the supposed dead weight of history. “What’s done cannot be undone,” murmured Lady Macbeth but she wasn’t privy to the skill and daring of Finn Russell or the killer finishing of Duhan van der Merwe. The last time England lost three or more consecutive home games in this fixture was in the early 1900s before Twickenham became their spiritual home.

Continue reading...

• Wing has reinjured shoulder and could be out for season
• Injury leads to questioning of RFU’s contract system

England’s Calcutta Cup preparations have been tainted by the fallout from Immanuel Feyi-Waboso’s shoulder injury, which raises questions over the Rugby Football Union’s new central contracting system.

Feyi-Waboso reinjured his shoulder at England’s training base on Wednesday after suffering a dislocation on Exeter duty on 21 December, with the Chiefs confirming he will be sidelined for up to 14 weeks. He is unlikely to play again this season and, as he will be out of action when Andy Farrell names his British & Irish Lions squad, Feyi-Waboso’s chances of touring Australia are hanging by a thread.

Continue reading...

• Winger also a doubt for British Lions’ tour of Australia
• Feyi-Waboso finally had shoulder surgery after delay

Immanuel Feyi-Waboso has finally undergone shoulder surgery, leaving his hopes of being in contention for this summer’s British & Irish Lions tour of Australia in the balance and ruling him out of England’s entire Six Nations campaign.

The 22-year-old sustained a dislocated shoulder in December and the confusion as to how best to treat the injury has dragged on for two months. He is one of 17 England players who were awarded enhanced contracts in October, which give Steve Borthwick the “final say” on all sports science matters.

Continue reading...

Hosts must unlock solutions to the deadly duo when the teams contest the Calcutta Cup at Twickenham on Saturday

No one can say England have not been forewarned. Their recent record against Scotland – one win in their past seven Calcutta Cup encounters – has involved a range of painful indignities but two familiar themes stand out. Their names are Finn Russell and Duhan van der Merwe and, fitness permitting, the deadly duo will be back in harness in London on Saturday.

If Russell has been the deft-fingered architect of many of Scotland’s best moments, Van der Merwe has been the breeze-block destroyer of English reputations in each of the last two years. Who can possibly forget his brace of tries at Twickenham two years ago or, indeed, his hat-trick in the same fixture at Murrayfield 12 months ago?

Continue reading...

• Harlequin missed important kicks in win against France
• ‘He’s a world class goal-kicker so it’s very simple’

Steve Borthwick has given the “world class” Marcus Smith a vote of confidence as England’s goal-kicker for Saturday’s Calcutta Cup after sticking by the Harlequins playmaker despite his recent wobble from the tee.

Smith will retain the kicking duties against Scotland despite handing over to Fin Smith against France, when the Northampton fly-half guided England to a 26-25 victory. Marcus Smith missed two straightforward kicks against Les Bleus in the second half, hooking both left, before Fin Smith took over and kicked crucial conversions in the 71st and 80th minute.

Continue reading...

The community game’s feedback for the Bills, Sweeney and Beaumont, makes for painful reading as RFU hits the road in week of Calcutta Cup

You may have noticed that the sports pages are less, well, sporty than they once were. There is rather more chance of reading stern-faced stories about Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazers or Manchester City’s latest legal dispute than, say, the muddy winter joys of grassroots rugby union. It is the way of the modern world and, anyway, England playing Scotland in the Six Nations this Saturday is a bigger deal, right?

Well, yes and no. If you are counting the beans inside the Rugby Football Union’s offices in Twickenham there is barely a contest. The Six Nations annually bankrolls the rest of the domestic game: it is the commercial goose that lays the golden Gilbert‑shaped eggs. Never mind the scoreboard, let’s keep the corporate guests well fed and watered. It’s all about the bottom line.

Continue reading...

• Scotland have won the last four meetings in Six Nations
• Steve Borthwick using clips of defeats for motivation

England players have been shown Calcutta Cup video nasties for extra motivation as they seek to end a miserable run against Scotland on Saturday.

Steve Borthwick’s side will bid for a first win against the auld enemy in five years buoyed by their one-point victory against France last time out. But the head coach is waiting on the second-row George Martin, who did not take part in full training on Monday because of discomfort in his knee.

Continue reading...

Scrum-half’s contribution during the end of France win justified faith in giving Northampton man full 80 minutes

It wasn’t just the way Steve Borthwick used his bench that shaped England’s victory over France, it was the way he didn’t use it, too. Instead of bringing on Harry Randall, Borthwick backed Alex Mitchell to play a full 80 minutes, something he hasn’t allowed any scrum-half to do since Mitchell last did it during England’s tour of New Zealand.

Mitchell missed most of the intervening games while he was recovering from a neck injury, including the three defeats in the autumn when Borthwick chopped and changed between Randall, Ben Spencer and Jack van Poortvliet in the interim.

Continue reading...

As a sports journalist, I learned more about these players in a couple of episodes than years of press conferences

Things are a little different around England’s training base at Pennyhill Park this year. It’s not just that they have a new captain or a couple of uncapped players, it’s that you have to go way back to 2009 to find the last time that one, the other, or, more often than not, both of Ben Youngs and Dan Cole weren’t with the squad.

The Leicester pair have been ever-present through the best and worst of the past 15 years of English rugby, until Youngs, 35, retired from Test rugby after the last World Cup. His great mate Cole, 37, went on one more year, until the head coach, Steve Borthwick, finally decided to leave him out of the squad this spring. Cole hasn’t officially announced his own international retirement but only because, he says drily, that “it would feel like locking the stable door after the horse has already bolted”.

Continue reading...

Fin Smith’s control at fly-half looks the better option but that need not mean the end of the Harlequin’s Test career

All too often, both in life and rugby, people prefer to stick to a certain template rather than try something different. Many, for example, still envisage the perfect No 10 to be an impish genius and, ideally, Welsh. Those who do not quite fit the mould – particularly those taking over from a recently departed legend – have to work doubly hard to shift entrenched perceptions.

Dan Biggar, Wales’s most-capped fly-half, was instructive on the subject in his thought-provoking autobiography, The Biggar Picture. “Throughout my career I’d constantly had to silence the critics. I was too slow. I stood too deep. I was petulant, aggressive and one-dimensional. I kicked too much and ran too little. I was, in short, not your typical Welsh fly-half. Where Barry John would paint you a picture, I’d draw you a diagram.”

Continue reading...

Emotional success against France captures imagination and showcases the charm and unpredictability of the Six Nations

After it was all over on Saturday night, England’s players peeled away to seek out their loved ones in the stands. Fin Smith’s parents, Andrew and Judith, were awaiting their match-winning boy and the shared family embrace, when it came, was among the more heartwarming things you’ll see in sport all year. All those unsung hours on school and club touchlines, all those youthful ups and downs, distilled into a tight group hug of the purest emotional joy.

In a strange way it also captured the tangled charm of the Six Nations. Andrew Smith is a proud Scot who met his wife – whose father Tom represented Scotland and the British & Irish Lions – at a post-match curry night in the clubhouse at London Scottish. What a Proclaimers-style 500-mile walk it has been from there to celebrating one of England’s more stunning modern wins with their red-rose-wearing son. Heaven knows how they will feel when Scotland head south next week for a Calcutta Cup clash now laden with even more resonance.

Continue reading...

• Both players could return for business end of tournament
• England beat France on Saturday to get back in title hunt

England are hopeful George Furbank and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso will be back for the business end of the Six Nations campaign to bolster their title push after keeping their hopes alive with victory against France.

The Northampton full-back ­Furbank has been out of action since December with a broken arm while Feyi-Waboso is nursing a shoulder injury and both were considered in danger of missing out on the entire championship. But after the last‑gasp win on Saturday kick‑started England’s campaign Steve Borthwick revealed both ­players could yet return for his side’s run-in.

Continue reading...