England revival is underway - Lewsey

Josh Lewsey is convinced England will reflect on last weekend’s RBS 6 Nations victory over Italy as the dawn of a new era for English rugby.

England ended a four-game losing streak and a winter of discontent with a comfortable six-try win over the Azzurri at Twickenham when, for the first time, things started to go as planned.

The first shoots of a recovery, which the England coaching staff had always insisted were growing, finally showed the light of day and Lewsey now insists the side can go on to blossoming success.

Next up is Scotland for the Calcutta Cup on Saturday and England have a renewed determination to build on last week’s victory and take another step on the road to retaining the World Cup.

“We have been through some pretty low points and we are certainly on the way back up. With all due respect to Italy, it wasn’t New Zealand we were playing - but I think we will look back on last weekend’s game against Italy in a couple of years and say that was the stepping stone going forward,” said Lewsey, 28.

“We have come through these hard losses and started rebuilding again. Don’t get me wrong, we will have some hiccups on the way again, but in terms of setting out the immediate mindset and intentions of how we want to play, last weekend was the first time we produced what we set out to do during training.

“That was to put some shape and pattern on the amount of possession we had enjoyed in previous games.

“Against Scotland it is about making another step forward with the ball in hand because our defence, by and large in this tournament, has been pretty damn good.

“It’s what we do with ball in hand that dictates what the score will be at the weekend.”

And if they can match the manner in which Wales blitzed Scotland in the first half at Murrayfield last Sunday the score will be hefty.

There were indications England had finally got their attacking systems functioning against Italy as they scored six tries and could, with sharper and more ruthless execution, had 10 more.

Scotland, though, made an impressive second-half fightback against Wales - albeit a fruitless one as they already trailed 43-3 – and the architects of that response have been rewarded with starts on Saturday.

Nathan Hines will start in the second row and Leeds fly-half Gordon Ross replaces Dan Parks in the number 10 jersey. The combative Jason White returns to the blindside flank to strengthen Scotland’s back-row, with Ally Hogg moving to openside and Simon Taylor at number eight.

“We know what Scotland are like, they love to put one over on us,” said Lewsey.

“They’ve played some fairly negative rugby in this championship and haven’t performed well as a result of it.

“But against Wales in the second half, with their backs to the wall, they came out and showed what they are capable of doing.

“They will try to play like that for the entire 80 minutes at the weekend. They showed how they can score tries and be dangerous as a result of it.

“Gordon has played in the Premiership regularly and he is a class player. He is a talented guy. We know what they are capable of.”

But Lewsey retains complete confidence that England, having emerged from their slump, will have too much for the Scots, however bravely they battle.

“We know if we perform to our ability we can win the game. That is the end of it,” he said.

“If we put pattern to our play and our execution is good and improves on last week, there is no reason we can’t take a good victory over Scotland.”