Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Daly backs England to turn things around now
ELLIOT Daly insists England are ready to relaunch their Guinness Six Nations title defence by atoning for their Calcutta Cup horror show.
Eddie Jones’ champions crashed to a comprehensive 11-6 defeat on the opening weekend as Scotland triumphed at Twickenham for the first time since 1983.
It was possibly the worst display of the Jones era, but Daly is convinced England can ignite their campaign when 80-1 underdogs Italy visit London this afternoon.
“We know what we’re capable of. It’s always disappointing when you lose, but it’s about how you go into the next game,” Daly said.
“Our performance wasn’t where we wanted it to be against Scotland, but we have this chance to put it right and get back to what we’re good at, so that means ball in hand and putting dangerous players into dangerous areas.
“These competitions aren’t won on the first weekend. We know we can turn it around, so this is a good opportunity to really fly into it and see where we can put ourselves.
“We’ve been looking at what we can do to get back playing in the way we want to play and enforcing our game on the other team.
“Our best performances have been off the back of really good defensive sets, so whether that’s big hits in the game or all working together to get the ball back. We’ll be focusing on that against Italy.”
England’s backline were reduced to a bystander’s role against Scotland as what little possession they got was kicked away aimlessly at half-back.
It is hoped the return of the George Ford-Owen Farrell axis at the expense of rookie Ollie Lawrence will induce a better attacking display against opponents who are seeking to avoid a 29th successive Six Nations loss.
Daly said: “We’re a confident group. Obviously we’re disappointed with the Scotland result. We’ve looked at ourselves first, what we can do right. But the training week has been one of the best we’ve had at The Lensbury. Everyone is ready to go and raring to go.
“In our backline we’ve got a lot of ball payers and pace on the outside so hopefully it goes well.”
England: E Daly (Saracens); A Watson (Bath), H Slade (Exeter), O Farrell (Saracens, capt), J May (Gloucester); G Ford (Leicester), B Youngs (Leicester); M Vunipola (Saracens), L Cowan-Dickie (Exeter), K Sinckler (Bristol), M Itoje (Saracens), J Hill (Exeter), C Lawes (Northampton), T Curry (Sale), B Vunipola (Saracens). Replacements: J George (Saracens), E Genge (Leicester), W Stuart (Bath), C Ewels (Bath), B Earl (Bristol), J Willis (Wasps), D Robson (Wasps), M Malins (Bristol).
■ Last night’s matches between Gloucester and Bristol, and Sale and Bath both concluded after the Daily
deadline.