5 Talking Points: England 16-14 Wales - Steve Borthwick & Jamie George Press Conference 2024 Six Nations

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.

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."

STEVE BORTHWICK: "Well, I think the first thing we take from there is that there's a team here that stays in the fight, that finds a way. And was there improvements in that from last weekend? Yes, I think it was it shows that the work we're doing, the work these players are doing each day is paying dividends. But the biggest lesson here is the trait, that the players are developing in themselves, which is one that stays in the fight."

"Well, I think that I will sense from the players, that there was a confidence to find a way to get the result. Secondly, I thought that the I think the squad had a big part to play today. I thought you saw big contributions from Dan Cole, Ellis Genge, Theo Dan and Chandler Cunningham-South came on and had a big impact on the game as well as Danny Care.

"So I think when you've got that depth in those positions, going on and having that kind of impact, it means you can increase the intensity in the second half. If I go back to prior to the World Cup, we identified England the second half performances had deteriorated since around 2018. And we will put a big emphasis upon second half performances. I think what you've seen through that World Cup and examples like last week and today's, you've seen the second half performance more consistently improve."

JAMIE GEORGE: "I think there was definite progress off the back of last week. I think there was so many times in that first half in particular, where we were having our defense was under pressure. We were down numbers. We still have the ability to get off the line. And you know, Wales' attack was was good, but our ability to keep going keep putting them under pressure, defending multi-phase, 20 plus-phases a few times and, you know, I felt really comfortable in that."

STEVE BORTHWICK: "So, we conceded eight penalties last week and seven penalties this week, which is the targets we discussed, wasn't it. And it was Maro Itoje who'd set the target for this week. Maro Itoje had set the target for seven, and the players achieved it. For some reason they'd made it a little bit tricky, by going to six in the first half and one in the second half. But they found a way."

"Disappointedly, we had a penalty count that was 6-0 at half time, and two sin bins. And ultimately, having put up with all that 37 or 38 minutes was 7-5 down on the scoreboard. And could well have realistically been level, 7-7. And until that 37th to 38th minute, that was the status of the game.

"Then Ben Earl scored a great try, with the amount that these guys have had to defend being with 13 men. But what I sensed at halftime was calm, composed, great leadership from from Jamie and determination to find a way in the second half."

JAMIE GEORGE: "Yeah, we certainly felt like we were under pressure in terms of the penalty count. We're very clear about how many penalties we wanted to give away, when you give away six and the first half and your target is seven, then you probably need to be aware of that."

"Look, it wasn't exactly how we wanted it to go. I prefer to keep 15 men on the field at Twickenham against Wales. We don't tend to be able to do that very often. So that would always be nice. But, you know, the fight and the character, the sort of team that we want to be, to come out on the on the positive end of that result is a huge step for us."

JAMIE GEORGE: "Yeah, there's belief. I think the most important thing is that we can't get too far ahead of ourselves. I think we need to utilise this fallow week very importantly, because, you know, we've got a good opportunity to head home rest up for a bit and then, you know, really focus on what we need to do to get better because we know that we're gonna need to get better going ahead, going up to Murrayfield.

"But, you know, the foundations that we've laid have allowed us to have some belief. I think ultimately we believe in what we're doing, we believe in the England way, we want to continue, and keep growing and we've got the right people in the right places to be able to do that. So a couple of weeks ahead, heading up to Murrayfield."

"I don't think it's a huge leap. We've got three difficult games coming up, but I don't think that, we're in a place to say it needs to be a quantum leap to get a load better. Like I said before, we need to focus on having an environment where people love coming in and focus on getting better every day. And that's utilising what we can do in this fallow week, now.

"That's utilising an understanding of the game plan that we want to play against these three teams, and then you know, executing it as well as we can because we're two (wins) from two, we've done well in these first two games, we know that we've got a huge amount of growth left in the squad, so our focus is going to be on making sure we optimise that."