Get ready for BAZBALL RUGBY ( ) SORT OF
New skipper George promises England will follow Stokes’s cricketers by going out to entertain against underdogs Italy
ENGLAND will launch a hard-hitting new era today and while it won’t quite be a rugby version of Bazball, captain Jamie George is taking inspiration from Ben Stokes and the country’s cricketing revolutionaries.
As he prepared to lead the national team for the first time, the Saracens hooker revealed that Jos Buttler — the skipper when England won a Twenty20 World Cup — had been in touch, and George is keenly following the Test series being contested by Stokes and Co in India.
He is an avid supporter of the summer sport and is keen to apply some of his counterpart’s approach in the Six Nations, starting against Italy at the Stadio Olimpico.
‘Why would I not take inspiration from what Ben Stokes is doing with the England cricket team?’ said George.
‘You look at the influence he has on young players, allowing them to go out and perform the way they do. It’s exactly the model we want. He’s someone I take a huge amount of inspiration from, along with a few others that I’ve worked with more personally.’
The Bazball philosophy is as much about entertainment as results — perhaps more so. Rugby is not a sport that tends to allow such frivolous thinking, but having replaced his good friend, Owen Farrell, as England captain, George wants to go at least some way towards embracing the concept of targeting style as well as substance.
‘It’s well spoken about that I want a connection with the fans,’ he said. ‘I want people to love coming to watch England play, for plenty of reasons; the result being one, how we play being another. He (Stokes) talks about being entertainers and we want to entertain people, but we want to do it in the right way.
‘They’ve managed to find a way to do that with Bazball. We will find our own way of doing it.’ When pressed on what the oval-ball equivalent of a ramp shot over the wicketkeeper for six would be, George quipped: ‘Me kicking a drop goal in the first few minutes — but that’s not part of the plan!’
The plan is to evolve, rather than seek a rapid transformation. Don’t expect fireworks or a sudden out- break of risk- taking from long-range. England have had a personnel overhaul but there is little prospect of a tactical one — certainly not on a grand scale. Alex Mitchell and George Ford will kick a lot. So will Henry Slade, so will Elliot Daly.
The visitors will seek to establish control of possession and territory, before trying to cut loose.
For all the pre- championship talk of expanding their repertoire, the England game-plan will, as ever, revolve around building a solid platform with pack power. ‘There have been a lot of questions about our attack,’ said George. ‘But, for me, every good, successful England team has been based around a strong set piece and aggressive, confrontational defence. Do we have the right people to do that based on training in the last 10 days? Absolutely.
‘It is an obvious statement — we want to go after them, we want to be very physical. Whenever you win against Italy, you have a dominant scrum and maul. But it’s the first game of the Six Nations, in Rome, against a very emotional team. We’re expecting them to come out all guns blazing, with smoke coming out of their ears. We are very aware of how we need to respect them.’
It is high time for Italy to justify a greater level of respect from all their Six Nations rivals by finding a way to be competitive, after too many years of failure. They have finished bottom of the table in each of the last eight years. That really isn’t good enough.
They have never beaten England, and now they must try to do so without brilliant Toulouse wing Ange ‘Racing Snake’ Capuozzo, who has withdrawn due to illness.
So while there is admiration in the England camp for the likes of No 8 Lorenzo Cannone and Zebre’s pedigree prop, Danilo Fischetti, Gonzalo Quesada’s side are clear underdogs at home. That’s no surprise after they slumped to a horror 96-17 defeat against New Zealand at the recent World Cup.
Thousands of England fans have flooded into the Eternal City, full of belief about an imminent end to the cycle of first-round defeats. In the last four years, the national team have lost their opening fixture — three times against Scotland and once to France. Losing this one is near-unthinkable and would raise the spectre of another disappointing campaign, to follow the two-from-five returns in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
But Steve Borthwick’s enthusiasm for the selection revamp which has taken place contained a confession that he wouldn’t have changed so much, if his hand hadn’t been forced. He is without Farrell, Tom Curry, Marcus Smith, Ollie Lawrence, Manu Tuilagi, George Martin and Anthony Watson, among others.
The concern is that the assembled back line may lack attacking thrust and time will tell if England can muster a fall-back plan in the event that the fired-up Italians front up physically.
Here’s hoping for a proper contest. An Italian capitulation wouldn’t really suit either side. Here’s hoping England show some bold intent, rather than just endless pragmatism. It would be good to see Tommy Freeman in space — and the dazzling X-factor of Immanuel Feyi-Waboso if he is unleashed from the bench .
It won’t be Bazball. They won’t be ramping sixes. Forwards won’t be dropping goals. England should win, but it would be good to spy a trace of the Stokes attitude in what George and his team do.