England have “stuck two fingers up” at their critics in the Six Nations but captain Jamie George insisted they won’t get complacent like they did in 2019.
Victory over France on Saturday night would realistically secure at least second place – England’s best finish in the championship since winning the title in 2020 – and the first Six Nations in four years with four wins.
England have a chance to build on their superb win over Ireland last time out – their most impressive victory under Steve Borthwick and their best since the 2019 World Cup semi-final victory over New Zealand.
“We got some things really right emotionally last week in the build-up and probably a lot of that came from sticking two fingers up to some people who were saying some bad things about us after the Scotland game,” George said.
George insists, however, that England have learnt from the complacency that set in before the 2019 World Cup final, where they were beaten by South Africa.
“Steve is very conscious of [the complacency],” he said. “I learned a big lesson in 2019 after the New Zealand performance around things like emotional highs and lows. Saturday [against Ireland] was probably as emotional a performance as we’ve had since 2019. What I’ve learned is that if you try and convince yourself that you’re fine, you’re going to feel fine, physically you’re going to be fine – then realistically you’re not.
“It was a physical Test match. Emotion was high so physically and emotionally you’re right up there. You need to allow yourself to be able to come down, to then pick back up and spike at the right time.
“In 2019, we believed the hype, kept living it for three or four days afterwards. You’re in a World Cup final week and I had every distraction under the sun. People wanting to come over, thousands of people asking you for tickets, people from school coming out the woodwork who I hadn’t spoken to for 10 years. It’s amazing, how cool is that, something that I’ve done has reconnected me with someone I went to primary school with. It’s great but it can be really distracting and I probably learnt that the hard way.
“We probably got it wrong in 2019… we definitely got it wrong in 2019. We didn’t reach the highs of the week before and what I learnt is that you need to be able to give yourself the space to get away from things and reflect. Do what you’ve got to do.”
To stand a chance of lifting the Six Nations title, England require Scotland to comfortably beat Ireland in Dublin before themselves dishing out a commanding defeat to Les Bleus in Saturday’s final match. Nonetheless, George has tasked his team with embracing that dream, which would rank as the “greatest achievement” in his England career thus far.
