Last weekend, England made it two wins from two for their 2024 Six Nations campaign. Steve Borthwick’s side achieved a narrow victory over Wales, thanks to tries from Ben Earl, Fraser Dingwall and a match winning penalty from George Ford.
This close fixture ended 16-14 to England, with Twickenham enjoying a victorious performance in this new era. Wales brought a tough fight to the home of English rugby, and took a 14-5 lead into half-time following a penalty try, and a solid score by back-row Alex Mann. England number eight Ben Earl was the Player of the Match following his stunning performance at the back of the pack.
The Six Nations sides now enter their first fallow week, with no matches scheduled for this coming weekend. However, the England camp will still be just as busy, as Borthwick’s men prepare for their upcoming trip to Murrayfield, to take on Scotland on the 24th of February.
England head coach Borthwick and his captain Jamie George, spoke after the match in a press conference at Twickenham. Here are the five biggest talking points, from the England post-match conference following the win Six Nations win over Wales.
1. INJURY NEWS – MANU TUILAGI SET FOR A COMEBACK SOON
STEVE BORTHWICK: “I’ll get the confirmed medical report tomorrow, after this game on all the players that aren’t or haven’t been in camp. Aiming hopefully, I say that word in a regard sense, George Martin will be back into the squad, or available for selection this week.
“Hopefully, Manu Tuilagi isn’t too far away, as in, in contention for the next election. Hopefully Luke Cowan-Dickie comes into that, for selection as well, for the next squad. But as I say, all that will be confirmed when I received medical report tomorrow (Sunday). Might be different to that. But that’s where I’m aiming towards right now.”
2. FORD’S DISRUPTED CONVERSION AND IMPORTANCE OF KICKING IN TEST RUGBY
STEVE BORTHWICK: “Well, I think right now you see that, And Warren himself has written about the importance of kicking in test rugby, it’s part of it. I think that balance throughout that, I think last weekend against Italy, we went to the edge 17 times in attack. And today on a very greasy day, we won’t be too far short of that as well.
“So I think we saying there, are some developments and inroads in our attack. I think you got a defense that wants to go and get the ball back. And the kicking is one way the transitions between the two. I might be wrong. I think they (Wales) kicked one or two times more than we did today.
“I think the France v Scotland game had like 82 kicks in it. You know, that’s the team that kicked the most in round one by a considerable distance was Ireland. Ireland followed by I think it was France shortly after that, I think Wales and Scotland were both higher (than England).
“So it’s a part of the game as it is right now. We’ve talked about how the game needs to create some more space. We can talk about that another time, maybe we can talk about what could could happen to create more space.”
STEVE BORTHWICK: (On Ford’s Conversion) “I’ll probably make the same of it, as what you make of it.”