Why England haven't clicked, Steve Borthwick v Eddie Jones comparison and Lions ambitions - Courtney Lawes Q&A

Courtney Lawes: There doesn’t seem to be enough connection between the forwards and the backs. We don’t often see a pod of three forwards get the ball and get it out the back to the 10 with options off him – that kind of thing. I think we can definitely be more ambitious with our launch off lineouts and scrums. We’ve got the players to do it, so let’s do it. We don’t need to just crash Ollie Lawrence up every time. Let’s trust the players and their skillset. It’s a lot to do with confidence, we’ve obviously not had a great run recently, but there’s a lot of potential there.

Q: What changes to England's XV would you have liked to see this autumn?

CL: I would have liked to see Tommy Freeman in the centres. He is a deceptively strong runner, and has actually got deceptively good hands as well. So he’s a really good option for somebody that opposition teams have to defend, but you can also play through him. I think he’s definitely an option in the centres somewhere, and that would free up a place for both Ollie Sleightholme – who I think is the one of the best wingers in the country - and Manny Feyi-Waboso who is a very good winger – they are probably the two best wingers in the country at the minute. In general, this team has got a lot to learn and we’ve got to learn very quickly. We’ve got a lot of new blood and people that have not been in the fire. They might have been around the squad for a long time, but they’ve not played in those big games and World Cup semi-finals or finals, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia three games in a row. We’ve got to learn as quickly as humanly possible, get as much experience, wring every bit of juice out of every game, and I think we’ll quickly become the team that everyone knows we can be.

CL: He really has made that 10 shirt his own now. He deserves it, he’s incredibly hard-working and tenacious, is how I’d describe him. He’s only a little guy but he’s got a lot of bite and it means a lot to him to be in the position he’s in now. I know he’ll want more, he’ll definitely want to be going on a Lions Tour at the end of the year. I can’t see him letting up now, so it’s great to see him producing these kinds of performances. We just now need to find a bit more cohesion in that backline, and I think as soon as we do that and as soon as we get some of other threats like Feyi-Waboso, Sleightholme, Freeman, George Furbank – if we can get some of these other very good playmakers into the game, then we’re going to be going quite well.

CL: He's been very similar to the start of my career. The start of his career was relatively explosive, straight onto the scene with big hits and good carries, which is obviously a great place to start. I just hope he continues to work on the smaller details. Because while that stuff is great and teams need it and can get a lot from it, there’s a lot of minutiae that needs to be done for you to actually be a net benefit to your team. As long as he continues to work hard, to learn from the people around him and the coaches and develop his game as a whole, I think he’ll be a really, really good player. He can keep that stuff that he does, the carrying and hits, and if he builds more attributes around it he’s just going to become a better and better player. If he’s driven he could definitely lock down that six shirt.

CL: I don’t think there could be more difference! The one thing they share is the absolute diligence they have in their role, dedication to the craft. The amount of rugby that they actually get through and understand. I’d say Eddie is a lot more intuitive, and Steve is a lot more data-driven, is probably their main difference in terms of coaching philosophy, and they’ve got very different teams to look after now.

CL: Marcus will be on there. I’d be very surprised if Feyi-Waboso didn’t go. Maro Itoje will go, probably Jamie George, Ellis Genge, if Ollie Chessum gets himself fit he’ll be in with a chance. Ben Earl will probably go, maybe Sam Underhill. We’ve got a lot of really good players! Furbank could be in with an outside chance. Hopefully I’ll go, but we’ll see what happens.

CL: It’s been very different. I actually feel that I’m a better player than I was at the end of last season. I’m carrying probably two, three times as much as I was in the Premiership, just because my roles have changed. At the minute, I’m averaging two or three turnovers a game, and because the refereeing is – shall we say – different, you have to be squeaky clean and also very alert to breakdowns and things like that. A lot of my game is developing because I’ve been challenged to change my game slightly from what it was in the previous few years in my role at Saints. It’s been great for me, and I’d love to get the opportunity to actually see if I have become better at Test level. I’m always going to back myself, I don’t know if I’ll actually get the opportunity to go out to Australia with the Lions, but if I do I’ll be buzzing for it.

CL: Their grassroots rugby is really different to ours in terms of training and all that kind of stuff. Having children of that age that have done grassroots in England and now in France, they basically just play rugby for an hour and a half in France, and they do the occasional drill but it’s not much, whereas England is much more based around drills. You can kind of see in gameplans and how teams react in the loose, and the coaching is incredibly different. Let’s just say it’s very different, their philosophy and how they do things, it couldn’t be further from the English way really.

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