Joe Marler has revealed “in-house bitching” is becoming a thing of the past within the England squad after holding his hands up for how he choked during his costly lineout clanger in the defeat by Scotland. Marler admitted he froze at the crucial moment at Murrayfield but said England have collectively held an inquest into their disastrous finish to the Calcutta Cup clash.
They now turn their attention to Italy on Sunday with the Leicester lock/flanker Ollie Chessum in line for a debut, having been retained as part of Eddie Jones’s 27-man squad. As expected, Courtney Lawes has again been ruled out because of a head injury sustained playing for Northampton in mid-January and, with Lewis Ludlam also injured, the 21-year-old Chessum – who Jones believes can become “a younger version of Courtney” – is set for a place in the match-day squad.
Marler’s fluffed lineout – the second of his Test career and first in nearly 10 years – gave Scotland a scrum deep in England’s 22 from which they won the decisive penalty. The loosehead prop was the nominated thrower with no hooker on the field following Luke Cowan-Dickie’s yellow card but Marler admitted he released the ball to Alex Dombrandt too late, meaning it did not travel the required five metres, handing the impetus to Scotland.
The 31-year-old said he has been practising his lineout throwing again in training this week, under the instruction of the forwards coach and former hooker Richard Cockerill, but added that, as a result of Jones’s New England project, there had been little back-biting during the postmortem into Saturday’s 20-17 defeat.
“With this group it is probably the tightest group I have been a part of with a lot of the youngsters, who are very good friends off the pitch and the older heads coming together a bit so it is very tight,” said Marler. “And the way we have responded to [the defeat] has been much less in-house bitching as there may have been in the past.
“It has actually been a pretty level response. We did so many good things in that game but these little execution pieces we didn’t quite get right and we need to work on. So it is never as bad as we think it is and it is never as good as we think it is, so it is a pretty level response we have had from the group which is pleasing. It was disappointing and I don’t feel overly great about it, but I’m looking forward to tucking in this week and hopefully picking up the learnings of that last 20 minutes.”
Asked to expand on those lessons, Marler added: “Probably throw a little bit further than three and a half metres. Probably do some throwing work this week. We’ve had chats today about what potentially we could have done better in those situations. Hopefully, we’ve had the conversations now, so if we’re in the heat of the moment in those situations again, we can get it right.
“I just didn’t throw it at the right time. I should have thrown it earlier at Dombrandt. Unfortunately I threw it later and he kept running past the five metres with the eyes of: ‘Mate, why are you not throwing the ball at me?’ And I went: ‘I don’t know.’ I felt like Eminem in 8 Mile when he chokes on stage with his rap.”
Lawes’s continued absence is a cause for concern for player, club and for Jones, who has named nine front-row players in his 27-man squad, seemingly for added cover in the event of Covid complications when England are in Rome. With three of those set to drop out of the 23-man match-day squad, Chessum is set to come in. Joe Launchbury, who rejoined the squad on Monday, has returned to Wasps, while Tom Curry is set to continue as captain.
In the backs, Jones has selected the same 10 who featured against Scotland as well as Newcastle’s Adam Radwan in what is shaping up to be a squad showing minimal changes from Murrayfield, blindside flanker notwithstanding.
Italy have lost their last 33 Six Nations matches but Marler said: “It can be difficult. From personal experience it’s a little bit like you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Particularly from fans and writers that go: ‘If you put 50 points on Italy well you’re expected to, if you only win by five points well you should have put 50 on them.’ So that’s a tricky one to manoeuvre.”
