I’m a lover, not a fighter says Sarries star Tompkins
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BY ALEX BYWATER
the fly-half. “We learnt from it as a team too. We have become more aware that those things are going to happen and what we can do to make sure it doesn’t escalate to the point where it will cost us.
“We’ve discussed what we’d do to look after individuals, you don’t want to get to a game without talking about it and then think, ‘Jesus, what is going on here?’. You have to anticipate it and be aware of it.”
And England will hope to play their own games with Wales out-half Dan Biggar, who is surely not 100 per cent recovered from his knee injury a week ago.
“Anything we can do to get him off his game is going to be beneficial to us,” added Lawes. “I’ll certainly be hoping to put a shot on him.”
CHAOS swirls all around us but for England the picture could not be more clear. Beat Wales at home to keep the Six Nations title race alive. End of.
Fans with Twickenham tickets have been told to attend only if they have not contracted or been exposed to coronavirus.
There is uncertainty over when England’s game in Italy will be played and whether the championship will ever be finished. Enough doubt to scramble your brains if you let it.
England must not. Slip up against Wales this evening and it is all over for them, anyway.
Clinch the Triple Crown, on the other hand, claim maximum points and leapfrog leaders France in the table and everything is possible.
France are a side doing everything right. They’ve got themselves organised, found a unity of purpose and spirit, and have bloody good coaches and a generation of young players who will be around for a while.
But this is a nation without a championship in 10 years, a team that is still unproven under real pressure.
We have a pretty good idea, from the Ireland game a fortnight ago and World Cup wins over Australia and New Zealand, that anywhere near England’s best is going to be enough to beat Wales at home.
Eddie Jones’ men are a take-your-breath-away team when they get it right, when they’re in that sort of mood.
Good enough to beat anyone.
But a trait of this England side is that they do go up and down in their levels of performance.
They cannot afford to be complacent against an opponent with a history of scaling the heights in this fixture. Who can forget the 2015 World Cup?
The last time the championship was delayed, by the 2001 Foot and Mouth crisis, England coughed up a Grand Slam by assuming they would be as good in the autumn as they were in the spring.
Different players and a different time but this group must note that, not expect a repeat of their Irish performance but make it happen.