No.9? Not a problem insists versatile Ford
GEORGE Ford does not appear unduly perturbed that Eddie Jones has dusted off the old French strategy of scrum-halves and fly-halves being interchangeable just before the World Cup.
Nor will the Leicester flyhalf admit to being apprehensive about being earmarked as emergency cover at 9, even though the concept of half-backs swapping has been largely abandoned on the other side of the Channel – and has never caught on anywhere else.
In fact, he brushes aside concerns that he could find himself in the scrum-half hot seat because the England coach has opted to take just two 9s, when most of their rivals will take three.
In the event that his Tigers team-mate Ben Youngs and Gloucester’s Willi Heinz, the only scrumhalves picked in the World Cup squad, are injured, Ford will have to step in and instantly employ the specialist skills that make 9s the crucial link between backs and forwards.
However, even though he has spent time in the England training camps practising scrum-half drills, Ford, who captained England to their 33-19 victory over Wales last weekend from fly-half, kicking 15 points, reveals that his actual game-time at scrumhalf is strictly limited.
“It’s only been in games (for Leicester) where there has been a yellow card,” he said. “Your 9 gets sinbinned, you move in from 10, and everyone moves in a bit. I’ve trained there a fair bit – there was a stage in the Six Nations when they’d send Dan Robson back in the fallow weeks, and I trained at 9.”
Ford says: “To be honest, I quite enjoy doing it. You’re in the game all the time. The influence you can have in the defensive line is pretty big, and you’re busy in and around your forwards. You speak to the 9s here, and the basics of their game is to get to the ruck quickly and get the ball away. As long as you’re fit enough and can pass a bit, you should be alright.”
He continues: “I don’t want to downplay what 9s do, obviously. There are things like putting the ball into the scrum and delivery off the line-out, and box-kicking.”
The suggestion that he might find the scrum feeds a bit of a doodle having played Rugby League into his teens also gets a laugh from Ford. He quips: “You just put it in the secondrows’ feet, don’t you?”
He adds quickly: “No, we practice that all the time. We’re training all the time for if the situation arises in games.”
Asked if he would be confident in a World Cup game, Ford’s response is an instant: “I’d be confident, yeah.
“I’m really good mates with Ben Youngs and I’ll chat about it with him. Nines and 10s are pretty close in how they work anyway. I wouldn’t say I’ve studied any 9s in particular. If a situation did arise like that, the key would be to do the basics for that time, which are just to get to the ruck and move the ball away, trying to keep it as simple as possible.”
Ford argues that a lot of the skill-sets cross over. “It’s a passing, kicking, running position. It just changes from being the first-receiver to being behind the ruck. It should be alright.” He says he also backs his ability to meet the aerobic demands of getting to every breakdown. “They’ve got a fair amount of running to do in the game – they’d have to be up there with the fittest. I think inside backs in general are the fittest guys on the field as far as the distances you can run.”
Youngs, below left, is not exactly an independent assessor given that he is a close friend of Ford’s, but he backs the Leicester 10 to meet the challenges at 9 mainly because of his array of skills.
He said: “He did it a few times during the Six Nations in training, and he’s a great kicker and distributor. Of course it’s out of position, but he’s comfortable enough there. You feel that, if needs be, his skill set is more than capable of doing that.”