Ford’s tunnel vision for revenge
He won’t be pushed around by Scotland
GEORGE FORD says England will keep their eyes on the prize and not stoop to Scotland’s rough-house tactics.
Eddie Jones’s team are one win from being crowned Six Nations champions going into Saturday’s Calcutta Cup clash at Twickenham, as long as Wales lose to Ireland earlier in the afternoon.
And the head coach is demanding revenge for Scotland’s win last year when, in his words, “they pulled our pants down badly”.
England’s players need no motivation given what is at stake, but they have it anyway with the memory of 5ft 10in fly-half Ford being targeted in the Murrayfield tunnel before kick-off by 6ft 4in Ryan Wilson.
“It wasn’t Tunnelgate,” Danny Care, who played for England that day, revealed angrily on BBC 5Live’s Rugby Union Weekly. “It was more push the smallest lad in the team in the back.”
It brought a furious reaction from Owen Farrell, who ran to his team-mate’s aid, and England never really regained their composure, losing 25-13.
Thirteen months on and the auld enemies meet again with Ford promising England will exact their revenge on the field, rather than in the shadows. “We’d rather do it when the game kicks off, and there are a few ways,” he said. “You can do it tactically, by being smart, and you can do it physically – obviously within the laws.
“There was a little incident before last year’s game. But when you get two passionate nations coming together with a fair bit riding on it, you’re probably going to get instances like that. More of that goes on than you think.
“The opposition are going to try to do everything they can to put you off the game and it is a challenge. The amount of times I’ve been at the bottom of a ruck and opponents have tried to put a hand in your face or an elbow in your face, things like that. Just to try to rough you up a bit.
“When I was younger I’d probably react in the wrong way. Nothing against the laws of the game, but maybe lose your head in terms of concentration for five or 10 minutes.
“That helps nobody so you accept that it’s happening and get on with your next job. You have to be on top of it mentally because the one time you don’t prepare for it is the one time it could get you.”
Ford is adamant England have ticked that box this week and that their focus will be on themselves, “so that if anything like that does crop up – before, during, whenever – we can come back to being controlled and imposing our game plan”.
“But it is a challenge in any game you play,” he said, even a fixture in which Scotland have not won at Twickenham since 1983.
A year ago England failed to meet the challenge. But history suggests a repeat is unlikely.
And for Wilson’s sake it is probably as well he is absent. Picking on a 13st fly-half is one thing; trying it on with a Tuilagi another.