France v England, Stade de France, Saturday, 8.0pm
After England had secured the Six Nations title last Sunday when Scotland defeated the only side who could have overhauled them, France, their head coach, Eddie Jones, spoke to the 10 players in his squad who have been involved in a grand slam match.
Five – Dylan Hartley, Ben Youngs, Danny Care, James Haskell and Dan Cole – were involved in 2011 and 2013 when, instead of doing the slam they were slammed in Dublin and Cardiff respectively. The other five – Joe Marler, Owen Farrell, Joe Launchbury, Mako Vunipola and Chris Robshaw – were at the Millennium Stadium when Wales not only denied England the clean sweep but snatched the title off them.
“I asked the players if there was anything we could learn from those defeats,” says Jones. “The underlying thought was that you cannot underestimate an opposition team in Test match rugby. France are a proud team and they have no responsibility on Saturday: they can play with freedom and flair and that makes them dangerous. We must be right for the game and crush them with our intensity.”
It is not just this decade that England have slumped as they reached for the championship’s ultimate achievement. They did so three times under Clive Woodward, away from Twickenham on each occasion, in consecutive years before succeeding in 2003.
‘Close the deal’
Lawrence Dallaglio described the pain as like a toothache, one that was not persistent but which flared up in the cold months of January, February and March. "It always intrigued me," he wrote in his autobiography, "that we could win four of our matches and the only one anyone talked about was the one we lost as if the others did not matter. And because we kept losing the final game, we were thought of as a team that could not close the deal."
In 2011, England had not won the title for eight years, never mind the grand slam, and their final game was against Ireland in Dublin, where they had won in style on the final weekend of the 2003 Six Nations.
"We put too much pressure on ourselves that day," says the Leicester flanker Tom Croft, a replacement at the Aviva Stadium who started in the backrow against Wales in 2013. "We were like rabbits caught in headlights having gone about it the wrong way.
“One reason for the pressure was that we were constantly reminded that we had not won anything since 2003. That was not the case in Cardiff two years later when we simply did not play as we had done throughout the tournament.
“We tried to change things that week, trying to learn the lessons of two years before, but nothing went our way. We wasted some early chances and the game slipped away from us to the point where we lost not just the grand slam but the title. We had the consolation of receiving the championship trophy in 2011, not that it seemed anything to celebrate at the time.”
Ben Youngs, who was sent to the sinbin in Dublin, described the moment England learned they were champions hours after the final whistle as bittersweet.
“It was a weird sensation,” he says. “We lost the match but won the title. I do not want to experience that again.
‘Through adversity’
“You have to go through adversity to win things and one of the lessons I learned from the previous grand slam attempts was that we have to approach France as we would any other game: overthink it or hype it up and you run the danger of freezing.”
England have been away from home for their last seven tilts at the grand slam. Not since 1995, when 24 points from the boot of Rob Andrew took them to victory against Scotland, have England played for the prize in front of their own supporters.
“Playing at home does make a difference,” says Croft. “France are more dangerous in Paris than when they travel and there is no way they are going to roll over when they have the chance to deny England. As a player, you have to blot everything out and focus on winning a game and where I think Eddie has been good, talking to some of the boys in the squad, is getting them to switch off and relax during the week. He has struck the right balance and I expect us to be mentally right in Paris.”
Hartley will draw on his experiences in 2011 and 2013 when he leads his players out as England captain. “Winning the title in 2011 was an anticlimax because we had been thrashed by Ireland. It felt strange. We have the chance to win something substantial and we have to seize it because you never know when your career will end.”
FRANCE: S Spedding (Clermont Auvergne); W Fofana (Clermont Auvergne), G Fickou (Toulouse), M Mermoz (Toulon), V Vakatawa (French Rugby Federation); F Trinh-Duc (Montpellier), M Machenaud (Racing 92); J Poirot (Bordeaux-Begles), G Guirado (Toulon, capt), R Slimani (Stade Francais); A Flanquart (Stade Francais), Y Maestri (Toulouse); D Chouly (Clermont Auvergne), B Le Roux (Racing 92), L Goujon (Bordeaux-Begles).
Replacements: C Chat (Racing 92), U Atonio (La Rochelle), X Chiocci (Toulon), P Jedrasiak (Clermont Auvergne), W Lauret (Racing 92), S Bezy (Toulouse), J Plisson (Stade Francais), M Medard (Toulouse).
ENGLAND: M Brown (Harlequins); A Watson (Bath), J Joseph (Bath), O Farrell (Saracens), J Nowell (Exeter); G Ford (Bath), D Care (Harlequins); M Vunipola (Saracens), D Hartley (Northampton, capt), D Cole (Leicester); M Itoje (Saracens), G Kruis (Saracens); C Robshaw (Harlequins), J Haskell (Wasps), B Vunipola (Saracens).
Replacements: L Cowan-Dickie (Exeter), J Marler (Harlequins), K Brookes (Northampton), J Launchbury (Wasps), J Clifford (Harlequins), B Youngs (Leicester), E Daly (Wasps), M Tuilagi (Leicester).
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales). Assistant referees: John Lacey (Ireland) and Leighton Hodges (Wales).
(Guardian Service)
