It was an interesting afternoon for George Ford, as he led his side to a triumphant win over Wales at Twickenham Stadium. Despite slotting the match winning penalty, the Sale man had a real mixed bag from the kicking tee, with one attempted conversion in particular being a top talking point from the weekend.
After Ben Earl drove over to score a try from the back of an England scrum, Ford lined-up what everyone inside of Twickenham thought was going to be a straight forward conversion. Slightly to the right but not too far back, Earl’s efforts to drive over to the try-line saw him ground the ball close to the posts and set up his reliable goal kicker for the extra two.
However, in a bizarre turn of circumstances, Wales players Rio Dyer and Elliot Dee raced from their try-line as Ford was preparing his shot at goal. The two players closed down the gap, before Dee punted the ball off of Ford’s tee, curtailing any hopes of the extra two points. Boos rang round Twickenham with all eyes turning to the referee.
However, as James Doleman calmly explained, Ford took half a sideways step in his preparations, which in his eyes marked the beginning of his conversion. This then gave the Welsh players plenty of right to charge down the kick and deny any further damage being done to the score-line. Ford was understandably frustrated by the goings on, and gave his thoughts on the incident in the post match media mix zone.
“It doesn’t make sense to me that, mate. I’m trying to use the full shot-clock time as we’ve got men in the bin, you’re at the back of your stance, have your routine, and if adjusting your feet like that is initiating your run-up then. I’m not too sure to be honest.
“Some of us kickers are going to have to stand like statues at the back of our run-up now. A lot of things with kickers are, you want to get a feel, and sometimes you don’t quite feel right at the back of your run-up, so you adjust it a bit and think ‘right I’ve got it now’. You want your chest to be at the ball and all them things. What it means for us kickers is that we’ve got to be ultra diligent with our setup and process, as if they’re going to go down that route and look for stuff like that, we can’t afford that.”
Despite the frustrations of that kick at goal, Ford impressed from the boot in the latter stages of the win over Wales. The fly half executed an awe-inspiring 50-22, to send the ball into trundling into the far Welsh corner and retain possession for the following drive for the line. Ford firstly accredited his teammate Freddie Steward’s immense arial ability to try the kick, and talked through his mental approach when trying such a difficult skill.
“First of all, Freddie (Steward) was unbelievable in the air again tonight, wasn’t he? He’s worth his weight in gold in a game like that. You know he’s going to come away with the ball, so he’s brilliant to play with. With the game going the way it went and being close for various reasons, we needed field position, didn’t we? And as soon as we got back to a one-score game at 14-8, all we needed was one opportunity.
“Obviously a big part of that is field position and there are various ways of getting there. There’s running it into the opposition half; and I thought our endeavour [in that area] was great again. Or there’s going into the air or finding grass in the back-field. We managed to do that pretty well.”
“When you have a centre-field ruck like that, if you receive the ball one side, that usually makes their back-field shift over [to that side] and opens up that far side. Even still, you’ve got to be aggressive with the kick to beat them into that space at this level. I knew when I went from one side to another that I had to be aggressive and thankfully, it worked out for us.”
With Owen Farrell out of the England fold and Marcus Smith on the injury side-lines, George Ford has the keys to the England back-line for the 2024 Six Nations. The Sale man has long awaited such an opportunity for a consistent Six Nations campaign, and has done an excellent job so far in leading England into their proverbial ‘new era’.
There was a real feel of new beginnings, as England returned to Twickenham for their first home match of the new Rugby World Cup cycle. The likes of Fraser Dingwall, Chandler-Cunningham South and Ethan Roots all made their home England debuts, and the overall performance of the side was something to be admired.
There was an added sense of grit from the side, with an improved ability to come back and achieve the win, where some months prior they could have fallen apart at the seems. Ford recognised such qualities, in how this new England set-up is bying in to a determined and victorious philosophy.
“There was enough thrown at us, again, in that first half. For the first 15 minutes, I thought we were dominant. We’ll look at how we can turn that dominance into scoreboard pressure because that turns the game differently. In an ideal situation, we don’t want to be in these games where were winning by one or two points. We want to be putting teams to bed.
“We need to look at how we get better there. I think there are small improvements in us again. Going down to 13 men and being down 14-5 at half-time, was great. That give us the opportunity to win the game. But our endeavour is that we want to score more points and put gamers to bed. That’s what the best teams do at this level. That’s what we’re going to aim for.”
“There’s definitely a different feeling because there are still 40 minutes of the game left. That’s such a long time. Sometimes, when you concede, you want to go back and grab the game straightaway and come up with a big play and be a bit desperate in what you do. That’s probably when you go and compound and get into a bit of a spiral.
“Then you concede 7 to 10 to 13 and then the game gets away from you. It’s almost doing the opposite of that and [saying] ‘don’t chase it, let’s build our way back into this’. If a three’s (penalty) on to take, we’ll put three on the board knowing that there are 40 minutes of the game left.”
As Ford alluded to, England conceded a try just before the half-time break, as Alex Mann crossed over for Wales. The well worked score saw a powerful carry from Tommy Reffell split open the defence, before he offloaded to Tomos Williams, with the scrum half then shipping the ball to Mann for the try. Ford spoke about how the try came at a pivotal point, and England rose to the occasion with an admirable second half performance.
“We’re getting enough practice at it aren’t we? That was just before half-time, so it was a bit of a blow for us, of course it was. The key thing in those moments is to come together and recover first, because it’s a long passage of play and they’ve just scored under our sticks. But’s it’s to come back to an element of calm and control and to say: ‘Look lads, this is the reason it’s happened’.
“We were 6-0 down on the penalty account in the first half. We were down to 13 men. We defended unbelievably well at times, but it was probably just a bit too much in terms of what was asked of us. In the huddle, we spoke about what we needed to do to see the half out and then we got down there and reset.
“We were confident at half-time. Even though we were down 14-5, we were confident that we had the game to pull that win off. It was trying to get everyone to be calm and controlled and give some clarity.”
As Ford discussed, England were down to just 13 men at one stage of the match, following back-to-back yellow card offences. Lock Ollie Chessum and flanker Ethan Roots were sent to the bin, which tested the mentality of the stretched England defence. Ford was impressed by the resolve his side showed to hold strong, and keep the score-line obtainable for when they would field a full 15 men in the second half.
“(It’s) Massive, massive. That just shows the attitude and intent that Felix (Jones) wants us to get off the line with. If we can do it with 13, we should be able to do it with 15. Those couple of tackles getting off the line from that kick-off to get us Benny Earl’s try was a big moment in the game for us. A lot of the time, defence is attitude and intent. You need some principles, don’t get me wrong, but you need attitude in defence.”
With a fallow week to enjoy now, England will be back on the Six Nations stage when they take on Scotland on February 24th. Steve Borthwick’s men make the journey up to Murrayfield, to take on a Scotland side that have a win against Wales and a (controversial) defeat to France under their belts. Ford believes that the opening two rounds have prepped his side well, for when they make the trip North of the border and head to Edinburgh.
“We know the challenge of what Murrayfield holds, and the way Scotland are playing at the minute, and the challenges of a Test match. I was thinking after the game you prepare as well as you can for a vision of how you want the game to go, but some of the things that come up in the game, never in a million years you’d think about in the week.
“That’s the reality and the challenge of a Test match. Whether that is a referee’s decision, conceding, us not executing, or positives as well, it’s dealing with all these things in game to find a way to win.”
“Our job is to make sure we prepare so that we do, yeah. They’ve had our number for the last few years, for various reasons. They’re a dangerous team, it’s always a niggly game, especially up in Murrayfield when you’re an Englishman going up there… going down the tunnel. Jokes aside, we’ve got to make sure we’re ready for that stuff. It’s the beauty of going up to Scotland and trying to win. All those things come into it and matter, so we’ll make sure we’re ready.”
Rounding off the post-match chat, it was clear to see that Ford is excited for the next chapter in the historic rivalry between England and Scotland. The fly half knows all too well how talented his opposite man Finn Russell will be, with the two set to go tee-to-tee, akin to Cristiano Ronaldo lining up against Russell’s self proclaimed ‘Lionel Messi of rugby’.
Ford knows that passion will be burning bright from both sides up in Edinburgh, as England look to win back the Calcutta Cup. The Anglo-Celtic trophy has been in Scottish possession since 2021, with Ford ready for the relic to head back down south and nestle back into the Twickenham trophy cabinet. Speaking on the expected intensity, and the game plan to prepare for the Scotland match, Ford said;
“That’s always the case. We want to stick to our plan and not give the opposition what they want. They’re obviously trying to impose what they want on you too. It’s a battle of that, and a lot of it comes down to who wins the game physically and with their intent and attitude. You’ve got to be good off the back of it, course you have. They’re frosty, those England-Scotland games, they’re right up there. As was today, to be honest. We’ll prepare as well as we can.
“What a great challenge it is. Scotland away is our next one. You would say they’re the teams that have been playing really well for the last few years. For us as a team we want to keep improving, winning and there’s no better way than to come up against Scotland next and the other two after that as if you’re beating those teams you’re doing something right. That’s what we’ll try and do.”