Jamie George has called on his England side to have the bravery to stick to their guns and go for the jugular against Australia rather than go into their shells after making a losing start to their autumn campaign.
England will be seeking an 11th win in 12 matches against Australia, who arrive at Twickenham ranked ninth in the world, but Steve Borthwick’s side have lost four of their past five matches after slipping to a third straight defeat by the All Blacks last weekend.
Against New Zealand, England began with an attacking intent, as demonstrated with Marcus Smith’s early decision to kick across field to Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, but after building an eight-point lead going into the final quarter, the hosts unravelled again.
The expectation on England to deliver on Saturday is clear given Australia’s run of five defeats in six Rugby Championship outings and Borthwick’s side are 1-5 odds-on favourites with some bookmakers. George has urged England to take the fight to Australia from first whistle to last.
“My messaging to the team, Steve’s messaging the team, we’re going to want to go out and play with courage and be brave and take teams on and never sit back,” said George. “The challenge is, can we continue to do that for 80 minutes?
“There’s a fine line between being relentless and almost reckless. We’re very clear about how we want to go about things. I think the more time that we spend together, the better we’re going to get. Whoever we’re playing, we want to take them on.
“We come up with brilliant plans, our coaching team and the senior players and that [Smith kick] was a set play that we identified. It gets a crowd on their feet a little bit. The more that we can do that, the more that we can then back that up with pressure off the back of clear execution, I think we can overcome a good team.
“If you worry about that expectation too much [you can] start sitting back and being fearful of failure rather than going out there and taking teams on. We will take on Australia on Saturday, that has been the message all week.
“I’ve been outspoken about making sure the fans’ day out and what they see on the field, they come away being really proud of and they come away having had a really brilliant experience with the England rugby team. I still think they’re having that.
“My message to them is that we’ll certainly need them in the big three games we have. None more so than this weekend.”
Australia open their autumn campaign on Saturday and will face all four home nations before welcoming the British & Irish Lions next summer. Given their recent struggles, Joe Schmidt could badly do with a scalp or two this month to assuage concerns that the Lions will steamroller his side and George believes the New Zealander is capable of improving the Wallabies’ fortunes.
“He seems like he’s the perfect person to take Australia on over these next few years now with a big 12 months for them coming up,” added George. “So I still think it’s a big rivalry. I think it’s historic. And it’s very exciting.
“I think it’s good for the game in a Lions year that they start picking up a bit of momentum going into that. Those Lions series are absolutely fantastic, and as much as we love the travelling support that goes over on a Lions tour, the home support is equally as important. If that Australia team is gaining momentum going into that Australia tour then that’s only going to be a good thing.
“Winning away from home is very difficult; despite often the Lions games I’ve played feeling like home games, I still think it’s a huge challenge for whoever gets the opportunity to go and do it.”
