You would expect the man who lit up England’s Six Nations campaign only to controversially lose his World Cup place on the eve of the biggest match of his life and then see his side crash out of a home World Cup to betray at least a hint of bitterness. But George Ford, the Bath fly-half, is refusing to dwell on the pain of what has gone and trying to look forward to the tough rebuilding process to come.
“I think it helped, going out there training. When you get knocked out of a tournament like this, everyone is gutted and it’s not great; you are moping around the hotel, thinking about what you could have done,” says Ford, who was dropped for Owen Farrell for the Wales match but came on a substitute in both that game and the spirit-sapping 33-13 defeat to Australia that sealed England’s fate.
The embattled Stuart Lancaster has recalled Ford alongside seven other changes in a youthful lineup for the dead rubber against Uruguay. “We have so many ball players we are wondering who is going to carry it but these guys, Henry [Slade], George, Owen and others are great players and will be great players for the future,” Lancaster says.
Ford feels the best tonic for the pain being felt by a squad now forced to go through the motions as the inquest continues would be to get out on to the pitch at the City of Manchester stadium. He said: “From an individual point of view you prepare for any game the same. You want to out there and play well. It’s another game of rugby. It’s something we love doing. And we want a good result.”
The Oldham-born player has not been short of family support. His father Mike, the Bath coach and a former rugby league international, heavily criticised the decision to drop his son for the Wales game and on Wednesday his brother Joe, who plays for Sale Sharks, joined the fray. “You have got to score tries against teams like Australia because they are going to score tries, they are that good,” he said. “It is easy to say with hindsight, but maybe if George had got more game time it might have been a different story.”
But recalling the moment he was dropped for the Wales game, the 22-year-old Ford does not let his mask slip for a moment. “Like I say, every player wants to start and back themselves to do that, but the coaches pick a team to win that week. You understand that, you get your head around it and you prepare as well as you can because anything can happen,” he says. “You could be told you’re on the bench then something could happen and you could be playing so you don’t want to leave yourself short of preparation time. In terms of that situation, the management pick the team to win the game that week and everyone from 1 to 31 backed it 100%.”
None of which lessens the pain of exiting the World Cup before it has even really got going, with Ford admitting he was both devastated and frustrated.
He says: “We’re on the biggest stage in a World Cup in our own country, so of course you want to put your best foot forward and perform as well as you can. We wanted to pick some good results up, give this a real shot and challenge to win the thing. We’ve come up short by a long way but we will take it on the chin and this week it’s another game for our country and we’re excited to go up to Manchester and play with this team that has been picked.”
Ford insists the relatively inexperienced squad had not crumbled under pressure but, like others, seemed at a loss to pinpoint exactly what had gone wrong. The abiding lesson, he says, was just how fine the margins are at the top of the sport.
He says: “From a rugby point of view every moment counts. You’re comfortable one moment then you end up losing the game and you have a do-or-die game the following week. In a World Cup the margins are small and every moment counts. That’s the biggest thing. You think you know these things already but until you experience it that is when it really hits home.”
Looking to the future, Ford is already looking forward to getting back to Bath, believes that he and Farrell could easily play in the same England team and is already hopeful the painful experience that now binds this squad together – and could equally yet tear them apart – will battle-harden them in years to come.
He says: “It’s not nice at the time but hopefully we’ll look back on it in four years’ time thinking we learned a hell of a lot there and come out of it as better people and better players. That’s the big thing for us now – to learn from it, take it on the chin, front up to it, be honest and not dress it up in any other way but come out of it as better people and better players.”
