The Daily Telegraph - Sport

England supporters finally have team to get excited about again

Ford reveals Scotland defeat led to shift in focus to attack Borthwick’s side hard to stop when ‘on fire’, warns Care

It is a mark of the richness of England’s attacking display in Lyon as well as the poverty of their performanc­es in recent years that a threewin Six Nations is being hailed as a sign of significan­t progress.

Not long ago Stuart Lancaster’s perpetual habit of winning four games was branded “unacceptab­le” by then Rugby Football Union chief executive Ian Ritchie. Even when they enjoyed runs of victories in 2020 and at last year’s World Cup, they were a hard team to love.

Yet there was no denying the sense of a romance rekindled around the travelling support piling into taxis and trams from the out-of-town Groupama Stadium on Saturday night. English rugby’s well of optimism, dry for so many years, has started springing again after the 23-22 defeat of champions Ireland was followed by a stirring 33-31 loss to France.

“If I were an England supporter right now I’d be really excited by what I’m seeing,” scrum-half Danny

Care said. “Everyone better watch out because when this team is on fire, they’ll be very hard to stop.”

The pivot point of England’s championsh­ip came at Murrayfiel­d, where the team were on fire but only through repeated acts of self-immolation, committing 22 turnovers and 25 handling errors. The 30-21 defeat caused plenty of external questions of Steve Borthwick’s project, but there were internal doubts, too. As Telegraph Sport reported, the new defensive system being implemente­d by Felix Jones was being prioritise­d at the expense of the attack under Richard Wiggleswor­th to the extent that in one session one back touched the ball only once.

There followed a significan­t realigning of priorities in training with fly-half George Ford admitting the defeat acted as a line in the sand in terms of what England’s identity was going to be. “We had to make a choice,” Ford said. “Off the back of that game we had to have a few honest conversati­ons and decide what team we want to be.

“We definitely went to one side of the spectrum and that’s what the whole conversati­on was since that [Scotland] game; that we needed to shift the other way.”

There was no greater demonstrat­ion of the transforma­tion in England’s attacking intent and execution than in the build-up for

Tommy Freeman’s try that looked like he had secured their first win in France in eight years before Thomas Ramos’s long-range penalty. The ball was moved from Alex Mitchell to Ford, via a flip pass, and Marcus Smith to Freeman, looping round in the corner, in less than two seconds right in the teeth of the French defence.

Rewind to three weeks before in Edinburgh and England were passing the ball way behind the gain line and still making mistakes, most notably when Ford, one of the best passers in the English game, fired a delivery at the head of George Furbank, who was running the same line as Henry Slade. “I just wanted

to be closer to the line, I wanted to be more of a threat and flatter, then bring the other lads with us,” Ford said. “That’s what the 10s have been working hard on. Against Scotland, we were too deep off the line.

“Sometimes you can fall into the trap when you are playing in highclass Test matches and you have the responsibi­lity of making decisions, managing the game and putting the team in the right areas, I went too far down that end of the spectrum. I reflected and realised I needed to come back the other way.”

This time last year, England were in the midst of a six-hour drought without a back scoring a try. In this championsh­ip, 11 of their 13 tries were scored by backs. No team reached the opposition 22 more frequently than England (48), they led the charts for tackle evasion (24 per cent) and gain-line success (52 per cent) and were second in line breaks (28) behind Ireland.

Clearly, there is lots to work on. They trailed at half-time in all their matches. Their red-zone efficiency is dead last. So, too, their tackle percentage as Jones’s defensive system beds in and they are vulnerable on turnover ball. “I absolutely promise you we will be better with that next time,” Borthwick said.

But on both sides of the ball, England have become a team you would watch, albeit maybe not at Twickenham prices. There is a sense of unpredicta­bility and verve. In short, they have become fun, a word never readily associated with Borthwick. As Ford says, attack can sometimes be the best form of defence.

“If you have an unbelievab­le attack and you’re causing problems and scoring points, that actually makes your defence a lot better as well,” Ford said.

“I think the penny’s dropped in terms of what type of team we want to be. And how dangerous we can be. We all play rugby because you want to have a crack, you want to fire shots, you want to score points, you want to score tries. Having this attacking mindset, going at teams, going to break the line and score tries. It’s far more enjoyable to play in as well, never mind for the fans watching. That’s the top of our priorities going forward.”

Titles remain the currency by which teams are judged but after so many joyless years at least England fans have a side they can love again.