If George Ford could be granted three wishes on the eve of a potentially gripping Six Nations he would make the following requests. Firstly he would like England to raise their attacking game to a different level and underline their status as a serious side. He also wants more people to realise that, despite his unsmiling on-field demeanour, he is actually enjoying himself. And the third? That all his passengers respect his strict cleanliness rules when he drives them back from training.
A psychologist might detect a pattern to this seemingly random list: a deep-seated need for order amid chaos, underpinned by a desire to be loved as well as admired? England, either way, have capped some obsessive fly-halves but none as tidy-minded as their current No 10: “Even if I didn’t play rugby I still think I’d be like that. I’m bad with my car. Not the outside so much but the inside. If someone gets in with a pair of dirty boots I’ll have to clean it as soon as we’ve finished the journey. It’s a bad habit but it’s what I’ve got used to.”
Given the high ratio of practical jokers within rugby dressing rooms this is clearly a high-risk admission. Having still not totally recovered from having his freer-spirited club‑mate Jonny May as a temporary lodger, he does not want to spend his entire championship vacuuming.
In most other respects, however, Ford looks and sounds more at ease than he has since his teenage prodigy days. Happily based back in Leicester, his restless rugby brain is always ticking but he has mellowed enough to allow a puppy – a French bulldog called Bailee – into the house he shares with his partner Jess.
Possible carpet issues aside, the dog is a calculated move: “It gets you out of the house and thinking about something different. You need to have something away from rugby so you don’t end up down too narrow a channel where it becomes not enjoyable any more. You don’t want to get to that point. Rugby’s your job but you grow up playing it because you enjoy it. It’s easy to lose sight of that sometimes.”
With his 25th birthday fast approaching, Ford is increasingly realising that life – and top-level rugby – cannot always be precisely micro-managed. He still struggles to resist televised matches on a Friday night – “I feel sorry for Jess sometimes but you’re thinking: ‘I need to watch this game’” – but has throttled back in some other areas. “I have learned over the years that doing less is more sometimes, particularly on the field. Take kicking. You can be out there for hours. I’ve found that for me it works better to do little and often, maybe 10-15 minutes twice a day and really focus on those sessions.”
Clearly there will be no dilution of intensity when England kick off in Rome on Sunday but, even so, it is still instructive to hear Ford insisting there is a softer side to both him and his good friend Owen Farrell: “When you spend time with Owen off the field he’s laughing all the time. Sometimes it’s easy for people who watch on TV to assume things because they see you in game mode. They say: ‘Smile a bit more, enjoy it a bit more.’ I love what I do but maybe I don’t show it as well as I should.”
There will be no massive Six Nations satisfaction, even so, for Eddie Jones or his players unless they can demonstrate, particularly in attack, they are a squad who mean real business. “At international level these days you get two or three opportunities and you’ve got to take them,” says Ford, as mindful as anyone of New Zealand’s impending visit to Twickenham this year. “To beat the best teams on the biggest occasions we can’t settle for taking one out of three. That’s where we need to take the next step: to start converting them all.
“We’re the team we are because we go at other teams and dictate to them what we’re doing. Eddie always mentions it … we’re not the biggest backline in the world so we need to be better in other areas: more detailed in our running lines, be better at catch‑pass, be better at decision‑making. I’d really like people to be saying: ‘Bloody hell, they’re clinical. Their skills are good.’”
For both him and England to achieve that state of nirvana, however, he also knows the importance of breaking free occasionally from his obsessive perfectionist side. “As a 10 you’re thinking about the state of your team, what state the other team are in, what the referee’s doing, what might be required in the last five minutes … sometimes you can think about things a little bit too much and it probably affects your individual performance.
“I try not to bring my rugby head home but it’s hard. You’ve got to be obsessed with the game, particularly in our position, and sometimes it can be a 24-7 job. But it’s also important to find time to get away from it, to live a normal life. It’s about having that balance, isn’t it?”
George Ford is a Land Rover ambassador. Land Rover has a heritage in rugby at all levels. @LandRoverRugby #WeDealInReal
