So much attention is being focused on George Ford many are forgetting what a significant weekend this is for Ben Youngs. It is 21 months, remarkably, since the scrum-half started a Test at Twickenham, his career having fluctuated madly from series-winning Lion to struggling club pro. There have been moments when Youngs has felt old before his time.
Belatedly he is back, fit and raring to go inside Ford, once his club-mate at Leicester. After two mediocre performances from Danny Care against New Zealand and South Africa, the England No9 jersey is again hanging on the peg marked “situation vacant”. Ford is hopeful the Samoa game will kickstart a lengthy stay in the team and the same also applies to the 25-year-old Youngs.
While there has been plenty to occupy him off the field – Youngs became a father for the first time in September – the Leicester player has not entirely forgotten the gloomy spell he endured last season when a post-Lions tour dip in form, allied to a hip injury, led to his omission from England’s Six Nations squad and caused him to cease enjoying a sport he had always loved.
“The biggest thing for me was to go back to my club and find that spark again,” he says. “I was struggling for form and I didn’t know how to get out of that rut because I hadn’t been in that situation.” He trained longer and harder, only to find it counterproductive. “The best thing I could have done was to do nothing and focus on enjoying the performance at the weekend. For me, it was getting my mind right. It is about enjoying my rugby. If you do that, you tend to play your best rugby.”
Two starts in New Zealand in the summer and taking over the captain’s duties at the Tigers in the absence of the injured Ed Slater have also helped overcome the mid-career doldrums which can afflict those who enjoy instant international success. Youngs, having won his first cap aged 20 as a replacement in Scotland, is now finding such setbacks can be beneficial in the long run.
“Some guys haven’t been through a dark patch but they will at some point because everyone does. Those summer Tests in New Zealand gave me confidence and reassured me I could play at that level. When you are struggling for form you can forget you’ve played at Test level before. I think I have probably come full circle and come back to realising what got me here in the first place. You just play what you see and don’t really worry about the consequences.”
Better, perhaps, to focus on the potential benefits of a good performance against Samoa. Richard Wigglesworth is lurking on the bench also hoping to persuade the management to re-examine the scrum-half pecking order but Youngs now has the opportunity to book his place against Australia next weekend. “We’re fully aware they’re going to be in our World Cup pool next year, and it’s going to be a big game for us.”
A couple of wins in harness with Ford would bolster the collective mood, particularly if England kick more accurately and take a higher percentage of the chances they create. As Youngs acknowledges: “You might get four chances in a game to score and New Zealand and South Africa convert three out of those four. At the moment we’re probably converting one out of four. We need to be better at that if we want to get where we want to go to. Also, if we get the right results in the next two weeks, we’ll have some big guys who’ve been on Lions tours back aboard leading into the Six Nations. All of a sudden we’ll have some momentum.”
Not everyone is so optimistic. The former All Blacks coach John Mitchell, who was also England’s forwards coach in a former life, this week described Stuart Lancaster’s side as “a PlayStation rugby team … there’s no x-factor and they look over-structured.” England, with Youngs and Ford at the helm, badly need to disprove that theory.
