England hit their emotional peak in their win against Ireland, as they rejoiced in celebration after Marcus Smith nailed the match-winning drop goal. The cathartic win has opened up the 2024 Six Nations for the final round of action, and England have the opportunity to clinch the title on ‘Super Saturday’
England could only end the tournament as champions, if Scotland repeat their impressive feat of a win over Ireland. An Irish triumph would hand the title to Andy Farrell’s men, and chalk off the England v France curtain caller as a dead-rubber fixture. Due to the circumstances being out of England’s control, keeping motivated for the test in Lyon has been an important objective for Steve Borthwick’s side.
England have to reach their emotional peak once again, as they take on a French side that has re-found their form in the past week’s win over Wales. However, after such an impressive performance against Ireland, England can’t utilise the ‘prove them wrong’ mentality for the battle with Les Bleus. England fans are expectant of a similar performance against Fabien Galthie’s side, to that which sent Twickenham into a frenzy just seven days prior.
One such player who never falters from an emotional perspective is Ben Earl, as the back-row is consistently amongst the loudest cheerers in the England squad. The Saracen understands the task of getting back up to that mental high-point in time for France, but believes that his side is always fired up, even if they are not carrying underdog status like they did against Ireland.
“If anything I think it’s, well, firstly it’s much easier dealing with knocks and bumps and bruises after a win like that, that always helps. I think it’s taken a little while to get back up to a level where we’ve got to start thinking about the next game, because there was a lot of emotional and physical energy that went into that game.
“We reap the rewards of all that, and I think we’ve been challenged by Steve since the minute we’ve come in, that we’re a team that never stands still, that constantly wants to move forward. And on the flip side the best teams back it up, we want to be one of the best teams in the world.
“We’ve got a chance of moving up the rankings this week, or if not now then further down the line. So we want to be one of the best teams in the world and the best teams in the world back it up.
“I think if you look at all the ingredients of last week’s performance, coming back off Scotland, we’ve had two weeks of that result resting in our stomachs, ready to respond to that. We’re at home, playing one of the best teams in the world, and a lot of people outside of the group were saying we needed them to have 13 or 14 men to even stand a chance.
“So we weren’t short of motivation, this week’s slightly different in the sense that we’ve come off a great win, in that we’ve probably not had that experience probably since we played South Africa in the semi-final.
“We beat Fiji (Rugby World Cup Quarter-Final) that was a pretty high moment, in the manner that we did, and then trying to back it up against South Africa. So it’s kind of leaning on those experiences. I think that’s what the value of having experienced players in the camp is for, those guys who have been on Lions tours, so guys who have won big games and had to win another one.
“That’s where the value of those guys being in the camp is second to nothing, so they’ve been great, the boys have been brilliant and we’ve had a great training session this afternoon, so yeah, starting to get our engines going towards Saturday night.”
Earl was astounding in England’s win over Ireland, as continues to lead the way amongst the nation’s most reliable performers. The Saracen was once again named as Player of the Match, which handed him the microphone for the post-match interview. Earl did not hold back, as he was delighted to have proven the doubters wrong, given Ireland’s pre-match status as considerable favourites.
“I’m a bit emotional,” he said to the broadcast media. “Because obviously Jamie (George) lost his mum the other week and we spoke a lot about that this week. And then Danny’s 100th and some of the crap that’s been thrown at this team over the last week. Apparently, we’re the worst England team ever, we’ve done pretty well for that accolade.”
Earl asked in this week’s media briefing, as to whether he is also utilising social media as a driving factor for the France game. The 26-year-old admitted that he didn’t need the extra firing up for Saturday’s game,
“I mean personally I don’t think I need any more geeing myself up in general, playing for England is probably the biggest honour and it’s never lost on me in that. But yeah, we’re all on social media, we all follow the respected rugby pages and rugby journalists, and no one gave us a chance, did they?
“So I think subconsciously that was burning away, and it was addressed at certain points in the week. But that was never really the big, deciding, motivating factor. I think we were disappointed and gutted with how we performed against Scotland, and the opportunity to come back against the best team in the world at home, we were never going to be short of motivation.”
Despite running out barn-storming performances on a consistent basis, Earl is not settling for his accomplishments and constantly strives to improve. The Saracen spoke about how he wants to continue his upwards trajectory, and was admittedly unhappy with his defensive effort against Ireland. Speaking on how he wants to achieve world class status, Earl said;
“I’m trying to take my game to a place it’s not been before. You have to nit-pick and look at your performance as a whole, especially being a back row because it’s not all about what you do with the ball in hand, it’s not all about what you do without the ball, it’s a combination of both.
“I’m trying to get to a point where both facets of my game are at a world class standard. That’s not the case now and it’s certainly something I’m working very hard towards.”
“I’ve made no secret to where I want to be in the game. I think I put a bit more pressure on myself than in the past. It’s something I’ve just had to live with. I’ve really enjoyed this camp because when I came into this campaign I’d only played two or three games since coming back from injury.
“When I said those statement I didn’t really know where my game was at and I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to grow it over the last three or four games. It just feels like we as a team are just going to get better and better and the more I can contribute to that, then the better.”
Turning his attention to France, Earl expressed how his side are not eyeing up the match as an opportunity for revenge. The back-row did not feature in last year’s meeting, which saw England take their heaviest ever defeat at Twickenham.
Antoine Dupont and co ran rampant on Steve Borthwick’s men, and dished out a 53-10 hammering at the home of English rugby. Earl admitted how his teammates may have been ‘scarred’ from the loss, but are chomping at the bit to round off their Six Nations campaign with winning form.
“Again it’s one of those ones where it happened, and you saw the bounce back in the Ireland game the week after (in 2023). I wasn’t lucky enough to be involved in that but you felt like there was a big performance coming.
“I think it’s just one of those lessons, those players who have played in that game, you almost learn quite a lot from those harrowing losses, and those big defeats, than you do when you win by that margin.
“So I can imagine those boys who played in that game, although scarred for a very long time, felt like they learned a lot that week in terms of the level required, playing against some of the best.”
“I think we’re a very different team to those personnel, and the way we’ve gone about our work since that happened, 12 months ago. So no (revenge), not really. Well they’re playing at home, in an amazing stadium in front of amazing fans.
“They’ll know they have to put out a big performance. They’ve got amazing players, some of the best in the world, and again it’s kind of exciting when we can just focus on ourselves. We’re again evolving, we’re a new team, you pay attention to the opposition but you very much focus on yourselves in weeks like this.”