Six Nations: Greenwood takes nothing for granted

Will Greenwood downed a single glass of champagne to celebrate his sublime hat-trick after England’s thrilling opening Six Nations triumph over Wales and then spent the rest of the night worried sick that he might not be selected for Saturday’s match against Italy.

If ever there was an illustration of the extraordinary competitiveness and depth of quality in Clive Woodward’s England squad it was surely there in the short time it took to burst Greenwood’s euphoric bubble.

Happily, the Harlequins centre runs out for his 19th cap at Twickenham driven on by the knowledge that missing out on rugby immortality could be the penalty for one bad game.

‘‘It’s true, after Wales I had a glass of bubbly that evening and then immediately started getting nervous about whether I’d get picked for the next game,’’ says Greenwood.

‘‘That’s the way it is these days. It’s a cracking England squad that I want to be part of. You don’t take anything for granted in this side.

‘‘As Clive’s often said there’s no harm in changing a winning side as long as you keep winning.

‘‘If he thinks it’s best for the team for someone else to step into the fray he will make that call and the players will back that call and congratulate the bloke who has taken your slot and you have to train even harder to get back in.

‘‘That’s the environment you need to keep taking steps forward. We set high standards for ourselves. We gave ourselves a quiet pat on the back for a job reasonably well done in Cardiff but if you want to compete and beat the best as a regular occurrence you have to keep improving.

‘‘You can’t stand still and enjoy the last victory. It’s done, it’s history.’’

Greenwood knows better than most not to take anything for granted in the fickle world of sport.

He almost died after a horrific collision on the last Lions tour of South Africa and spent the best part of a season out of the game with a pelvic injury in his last full year at Leicester.

It saw him miss the whole of the last Six Nations, the biggest blow of all being missing the trip to Rome.

Greenwood lived within a drop goal of the famous Colosseum for the first six years of his life and in Rome’s Olympic Stadium there hangs a picture of his father Richard the former England captain and coach who played for the city’s rugby clubs Roma and Lazio in the Seventies.

‘‘I used to run up and down the Roma touchline as a five and six-year-old kicking a ball while my dad was playing,’’ recalls Greenwood, who boasts an impressive strike rate of 11 tries in 18 internationals. ‘‘That’s where it all started for me.

‘‘My mum, dad and sister all still speak fluent Italian and I can still understand some of it.

‘‘My great friend Franco is president of Roma rugby club and I’ve been over to see them train a couple of times. I’ve also got a lot of friends at Lazio.

‘‘We’ve got a whole lot of Italian friends who we used to live with coming over to watch the match. There’s so much enthusiasm out there and they are so keen to get it going. They just need the number of players to generate the depth.’’

Regardless of enthusiasm, however, the Italians could be facing a cricket score if England again hit the heights they scaled so imperiously in the Millennium Stadium.

For which Greenwood singled out his centre partner Mike Catt, who wins his 50th cap on Saturday, for special praise.

‘‘Catty’s got 50 caps and he’s been in and out of the side for years,’’ says Greenwood. ‘‘But he comes back even better each time. If I could take a leaf out of his book then I’d be a happy man.

‘‘He’s a top player and I’ll be cheering him onto the pitch when he’s leading the side out. He’s a footballer. In the new era of bish, bash, bosh, he’s still looking for space. He’s a thinking man’s player and kicks with both feet and passes off both hands.’’

And in common with the rest of Woodward’s remarkable squad he also subscribes to the rugby philosophy once passed on to Greenwood by his father.

‘‘Before I had my first run-out for the British Lions against Eastern Province in 1997 my old man gave me some advice,’’ says Greenwood. ‘‘He just said to me with typical northern bluntness: ‘Never take a backward step.’ I’ve followed it ever since.’’