Terry’s England pep talk before clash in Cardiff
JOHN TERRY revved England up with a leadership tutorial at Pennyhill Park yesterday to help prepare them for Saturday’s Grand Slam eliminator with Wales. The former Chelsea and England football captain, who is now assistant manager at Aston Villa, spent the morning watching training before joining Eddie Jones’s players for lunch. And Terry passed on knowledge acquired from captaining his country 34 times — including beating Wales in an intimidating atmosphere at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium in 2011. Back-up No 10 George Ford hosted a Q&A with Terry, 38, who highlighted the importance of player-led leadership as England build a new core around Owen Farrell. ‘He spoke a lot about Frank Lampard and the leadership group he had at Chelsea — a core group of players setting the standard,’ winger Jonny May revealed. ‘John’s a winner and a champion, isn’t he? ‘He spoke about how Jose Mourinho came in and changed the way they train. They just went after it every day. Instead of just getting through training, it was about winning and being the best at training. That’s sort of what Eddie does here for us.’ Bringing in Terry might raise a few eyebrows given the fact that he was twice stripped of the England captaincy for non-footballing reasons. But the RFU have turned to football before, with England manager Gareth Southgate, Antonio Conte and Stuart Pearce previously invited into the Red Rose camp. Jones has been cherry-picked from other sports throughout his career and England hope Terry’s influence can help them capitalise on their pole position to win this year’s Six Nations. The head coach last night trimmed down his squad, releasing Dan Cole, Alec Hepburn and Mike Brown, while lock Maro Itoje is still recovering from a knee injury. ‘Maro is continuing his rehabilitation on a daily basis,’ said forwards coach Steve Borthwick. ‘He’s going well — just not quite well enough for this weekend.’ The only enforced selection call will be on the wing, where Chris Ashton was ruled out earlier this week with a calf injury. Jack Nowell and Joe Cokanasiga are in contention to start, with May set to take up the left wing spot after scoring a scintillating 12 tries in 12 Tests. His scoring streak prompted team-mate Ben Youngs to declare the speedster as the best winger in the world on current form. ‘What Jonny possesses is out and out pace and that is incredibly hard to deal with,’ said Youngs. ‘When someone is as quick as him, you know he’s going to be there when the ball is put in behind you. A bit like Forrest Gump on that kick return in the movie where he gets given the ball and he just goes. It’s a great weapon. You’re not going to win that foot race against him. ‘He treats his body like a sprinter does, and he’s now seeing the benefits. I think he certainly is the in-form winger in the world and perhaps maybe the best winger in the world at the moment.’