England captain Jamie George says his unbeaten side can become genuine Six Nations title contenders despite tougher challenges still awaiting them. After beating Wales and Italy by two and three points respectively, England must now travel to Scotland and France and face an in-form Ireland at Twickenham, but George believes his side can still face the challenge.
“I don’t think it’s a huge leap,” said George, whose team had won just three of its previous 10 home games. “Obviously we have three tough games coming up, but I don’t think we can say we need to make a huge leap to get a better load. We’re two out of two and we know there’s a lot of room to grow as a team, so we The focus is on making sure we optimize that. This fight and character, ultimately getting a positive result, is a huge step for us.”
George did admit, however, that England must improve to beat Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday, let alone Ireland, whom they have not beaten since 2020. “We knew we needed to do better at Murrayfield,” George said. “The foundation we laid gives us some belief. We need to use this week off to rest and focus on getting better.”
It was the first time England had come back from nine points or more behind at home to win a senior Test match, with Wales head coach Warren Gatland taking heart from his side’s failure to win a game Morale victory expressed regret.
“It’s really, really disappointing,” Gatland said. “I’m proud of the performance and effort of the players but we’re disappointed not to win. I said to the players in the dressing room we have to be disappointed about that. We put ourselves in a position where we should have won that game .”
Gatland also believes his side will learn important lessons from the near miss. “I said to the players, we’re not there but we’re going to be a very good team. Today was part of the process of learning game management.
“When England are down to 13 players you don’t play with your 22. You might think it’s an opportunity to play ball, get the ball in there and squeeze them a little bit. I wouldn’t Criticize anyone as I’ve been through this before with other teams. Just needs a moment.
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“They’ve made huge improvements in a few weeks and were in a position to win today. To be fair, England had a kicking strategy in the second half and it paid off a bit. We made a few mistakes in the second half that allowed them to score Some territory and location.”
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England manager Steve Borthwick also highlighted the contribution of England’s bench to the final result, with George Martyn, Manu Tuilagi and Luke Cowan-Dickie all on the ball ahead of the Calcutta Cup clash Team boost.
“I always get the sense from the players that they are confident in finding a way to get results. Last week and today we saw continued improvement in the second half. This is a team that keeps fighting and a team that finds a way.
“We were very calm at halftime. We believed we would keep going and find a way out.”
