As England’s players basked in glorious sunshine on St Kilda beach, the mood as outwardly serene as the millpond surface of a shimmering Port Phillip Bay, it felt strange to be discussing stress with George Ford. The past few weeks have been the most turbulent of the England fly-half’s short career, with peaceful interludes almost entirely absent.
Less than three weeks ago he was enduring the most testing of days at Twickenham, missing six kicks out of seven against Wales before being substituted to ironic jeers. Recent months with Bath have been tough on and off the field, culminating in his father, Mike, being ejected as head coach. To contribute off the bench as he did in the first Test in Brisbane, having missed out on the starting line-up, says an awful lot about his temperament as well as his talent.
The 23-year-old’s reward will be a place in England’s XV for Saturday’s second Test at AAMI Park, a contest loaded with historical significance on both sides. Win and England will taste success in a three-Test series in the southern hemisphere for the first time; lose and Australia could complete the most rousing jailbreak since Thin Lizzy.
Either way, Ford will end the tour feeling happier than when it started. To rate a fly-half solely on his goal-kicking is like judging an artist purely on his picture frames; Jones has repeatedly maintained he sees only “a gifted player” who, like New Zealand’s Dan Carter, will improve with age. “Gifted players make mistakes,” said Jones. “Imagine what he’s going to be like when he’s 28. I go back to Dan Carter and the amount of mistakes he made when he was a young stand-off. Look where he finished up. George is a really good rugby player and he’s going to get better.”
While the tactically smart Ford does concede his confidence was bruised by Bath’s lacklustre domestic season, when they finished ninth in the Premiership, he argues that a fly-half in an under-achieving team will often be the subject of unfair scrutiny.
“I think people see it in isolation; I see it more as the way the team are going. We weren’t playing as well as we did the previous season and, as a nine or 10, a lot of things you do are affected by other areas, such as whether you are dominant in the forward pack or at set piece. It’s easy for people to say ‘You’re not playing well’ because your team aren’t playing well,” says Ford.
“But sometimes, as individuals, you can’t always play to the top of your game. I didn’t think we were playing drastically badly but that’s sport. If you’re losing, people are hammering you, if you’re winning people are loving you. That’s just the way it goes.”
He also flatly denies rumours of any potential switch from Bath this summer, preferring to focus on his resurrected midfield partnership with Owen Farrell in the wake of Jones’s decision to haul off Luther Burrell less than half an hour into Saturday’s 39-28 win. If Farrell’s goal-kicking had a significant impact on the outcome, so too did Ford’s distribution and organisational skills.
For now, as a consequence, all talk of a gain-line monster at 12 has been suspended and the so-called “Forfar” axis is back in vogue, as it was throughout England’s grand slam-winning Six Nations campaign.
“You start to understand each other’s games and potentially have the same mindset as 10s,” says Ford. “It’s just great to have someone else out there on the field who sees the game like that, as well as being calm and cool like Owen is. As a back line we’re getting better and better in terms of helping each other out. We’ll keep pushing each other to make sure we can get to the next level.”
The Wallabies assistant coach, Stephen Larkham, is suitably wary – “When you combine Ford and Farrell you open up the game a little bit more” – but Ford and his team-mates are focused on the Australian half-back pairing of Bernard Foley and Nick Phipps, an influential duo whenever their side is attacking. “Foley and Phipps at nine and 10 make Australia tick,” adds Ford. “They are the heartbeat of their team … we’ve got to be on top of them because they are two players who have a lot to do with what Australia do well.”
Indeed. For all the pre-match focus on scrummaging when England and Australia lock horns, it is the sharpness of both sides’ decision-making that frequently determines the outcome.
Ford, at 5ft 9in tall and 13st 3lb, may not be the most imposing physical specimen but he is a smart operator and will not shirk this weekend’s big challenge, saying: “They’ll bring physicality and will want to get one back on us but we’re desperate as well.” The mellow vibe of St Kilda beach will not be lasting long.
