George: England didn't know what was going wrong against France

Jamie George admits he couldn't figure out where his side was falling down in last week’s capitulation

Jamie George speaking during England rugby media conference at Radisson Blu St. Helen's Hotel in Dublin. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

Seven days will separate England’s thrashing at the hands of France in Twickenham and their summons to face Ireland in Dublin. It’s no length of time for a squad that has experienced such collective trauma and the sense listening to Steve Borthwick and his players this week is one of near incomprehension at last week’s stuffing.

SIX NATIONS RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP 2025

Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.

SIX NATIONS RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP 2025

Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.

No-one needed telling that the new gaffer had been handed a live grenade when the RFU decided they had enough of Eddie Jones and tapped out the SOS in the direction of Welford Road. But the view that England would be stronger come the end of this Six Nations than the start is beginning to look like wishful thinking.

It could be that the short run-in to this Aviva Stadium appointment is exactly what’s required for a team aiming to make amends. Or maybe they will find that the saddle is still slipping and the field is 20 furlongs further ahead when they get back up on the horse this afternoon.

The language emanating from the camp all week has been bracing. Bare, emotive words have been used that penetrate the skin like needles. Grief. Raw. Embarrassment. Adversity. Gulf. Gap. Guilty. Sorry. Gutted. These are proud men, all this will hurt.

Jamie George was among the chorus of the damned who fronted up after last week’s capitulation. The Saracens hooker flat-out apologised to supporters for the display and for the result, but maybe the most difficult to digest was the puzzlement he felt long after the final whistle.

How, he thought, had that actually happened?

“It took me 24 hours. The difficult thing on Saturday night was that I couldn’t work out what was going on on the field. I like to think of myself as someone who has a relative rugby brain, knows what’s going on, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“People talk about this dismantling of the forward pack and that didn’t happen necessarily at the setpiece. It probably did in the collision areas. We came together on Sunday evening, had a meeting, Steve actually highlighted that we probably didn’t know where it went wrong and how it got so bad.

“And then he went: this is exactly what happened, this is the plan, this is the mindset you need to have to make sure that it never happens again. Probably there was still a bit of hangover on the Monday morning but when we started looking ahead to Ireland those things quickly moved past.” 

The depths plummeted last week were extraordinary.

Six of England’s starters in round four were British and Irish Lions. A similar number played in a World Cup final less than four years ago. George alone has three Six Nations titles. He has three Champions Cup medals and four Premiership titles to his name with Saracens, whatever we may think about how they won them.

England may not have the vaunted back row of Curry, Underhill and Billy Vunipola anymore, and lodestars like Maro Itoje and Owen Farrell may have lost their way, but there is more than enough talent in the ranks to be making better inroads than this.

The problem this week is where to start.

George and everyone else in camp is waving away questions about the fast-approaching World Cup. Why fret about a distant meteorite when you might be mangled by a looming sports car? First things first and all that.

It starts with the defence. Don’t concede 50-plus points in Dublin. That’s number one. Bring the sort of physicality and aggression that they themselves concede wasn’t there against France. Maximum effort = minimum requirement, as they say.

This is a side re-learning its ABCs and they face an opponent rewriting rugby’s code in this grand old tournament. That will hurt too. George knows lots of the Ireland lads well. He was texting Conor Murray at the start of the week and planning a pint after the game regardless of what happens on the pitch. He could well be drowning more sorrows.

“It's as big a Test match as you're going to play in on Paddy's weekend here,” he said of a ground where he has known both huge highs and lamentable lows. “Look, when I'm not playing against them, I watch Ireland playing with a smile on my face.

“I'm really close with a lot of those guys and friendly with a lot of those guys but I won't be playing with a smile on my face come Saturday at five o'clock. They're a great team and a great bunch of guys but, at the same time, the rivalry is certainly still there.”