When the final whistle sounds France and England will look back on this year’s Six Nations championship and wish they could edit the narrative ever so slightly. Barring a spectacular Irish collapse against Scotland in Dublin, this edition of “Le Crunch” will in effect be a shootout for second place, hardly the grand finale that either team or the tournament organisers ideally visualised.
It remains, nevertheless, a psychologically significant contest for all involved. France, having fallen short at their own World Cup, have been searching for their best form and an upbeat end to their campaign would ease the pressure on their head coach, Fabien Galthié. The visitors, similarly, are keen not to wave adieu to the feelgood momentum generated by their stirring win over Ireland last Saturday.
Visible week-to-week improvement remains every coach’s dream and England, in particular, have not recently been renowned for backing up big wins against decent teams. The most glaring example was in 2019 when they delivered a stellar performance to knock out the All Blacks in the World Cup semi-final, only to be swept away by South Africa’s scrum power in the final.
That painful lesson still lingers in the mind of Jamie George, England’s captain, and he brought up the subject this week with his head coach, Steve Borthwick. “It was one of the first things I spoke to him about when we met up again and he was already all over it,” said George, as keen as anyone for England to build on the promise shown at Twickenham. “I learned a big lesson in 2019 after the New Zealand performance around emotional highs and lows. Saturday was probably as emotional a performance as we’ve had since 2019. You need to allow yourself to come down to then pick back up and spike at the right time.”
As England now concede, they made the mistake in 2019 of assuming they could roll straight from one weekend to the next without resetting themselves mentally and physically. Almost five years on George says he and his teammates got the process wrong in Japan. “We believed the hype and kept living [the semi-final win] for three or four days afterwards.
“You’re in a World Cup final week and I had every distraction under the sun. People wanting to come over, thousands of people asking you for tickets, people from school coming out of the woodwork who I hadn’t spoken to for 10 years. It’s great but it can be really distracting and I probably learned that the hard way. We definitely got it wrong. We didn’t reach the highs of the week before and what I learned is that you need to give yourself the space to get away from things and reflect. Do what you’ve got to do.”
Hence England’s determination to sidestep the same trap this time. The performance against Ireland boosted everybody connected with the squad but complacency will be fatal against a French side packing about a ton of scrummaging weight. “It will be a huge challenge … it would be naive to say it isn’t,” said England’s scrum coach, Tom Harrison, as the players completed their preparations on the billiard-table surface at Lyon’s impressive 59,000-capacity stadium.
George, set to play his 90th Test for England, relishes this kind of challenge – “I know exactly what’s coming …” – and also has fond memories of helping Saracens to win the European Cup at the same venue in 2016. That was also the year, though, that England last won a Six Nations game in France and replicating the emotional heights the team experienced last Saturday will not be easy. “At training on Tuesday I still felt like I was made of wood,” said George. “[But] it’s been incredible what Steve’s done in terms of giving us the space to come down to allow us to come back up. I can confidently say we’ve been given the space to recover mentally as well as physically.”
In terms of extra motivation, England do not need to rewind far. Their 53-10 loss at home to France at Twickenham 12 months ago was as humbling an experience as they have endured in the Six Nations and George will be forcibly reminding his players of the need to make amends. “Definitely,” said the 33-year-old hooker. “We were awful. It wasn’t even just the result – France were great but we didn’t work. The bare minimum of what we should be about is fight and showing character. That game was the complete opposite. We gave up, we looked tired, we didn’t front up physically. That isn’t the sort of team we want to be and it still hurts me to this day.”
In a data obsessed world, in summary, the importance of channelling emotion in the best way possible remains just as vital. As George confirms, England have no problem getting up for games when their backs are against the dressing room wall. Less simple are more nuanced occasions like this when the team’s leaders look to press whatever buttons they can find.
“I’ve said to the rest of the team, ‘We haven’t cracked it, one result doesn’t mean we are a great team,’” said George. “But being able to back it up puts us in the right direction and allows us the confidence to know we can do it against the best.
“Motivationally, if we win we go into the top four of the world. We will use that but at the same time we don’t want external factors to be a driver for this team fronting up and performing. The more consistent and better teams, the teams that have been at the top the longest, are the ones that find a way to do that week in, week out. We achieved something special last weekend but being able to back it up is a huge motivation for me. Good teams react well to setbacks, great teams make sure they back it up.”
Nicely phrased, as ever, by the articulate George. France still have plenty of talent and a deadly goalkicker in Thomas Ramos but post-World Cup ennui and the absence of the peerless Antoine Dupont have been sapping their collective energy. It has given all their opponents a chance and this England side also has a fresh glint in its eye. Four wins from five championship games would be an admirable return and, theoretically at least, there is still a title on offer.
“We can’t control what happens in Dublin but at the same time we have a great chance to go out and do something special,” said George, insisting he can sense another rousing England win coming on. Unless France can rediscover their old va va voom, he may just be right.
