Everyone is in agreement that a hugely significant fixture awaits the rugby men of England and Ireland. Inside the two dressing rooms, though, intense personal motivation is also part of the emotional mix. Sometimes it can be overlooked just how much pain and soul searching has to be endured before players finally run out into Twickenham’s concrete vastness and stand proudly for the anthems.
For at least one Englishman, it is only then that the madness makes sense. All those sacrifices – the injuries, the rehab, the relentless grind of professional sport – finally become worth it from Jamie George’s perspective. “A lot of the time during the week you go through a lot of hardship. It isn’t easy,” he says. “Everyone sees you lining up for the anthems but not always the amount you need to go through to get there.”
And in that split second, as he gazes up at the evening sky and thinks of his family and friends, George will give grateful thanks that, somehow, he is still standing there. As recently as last September the Saracens and England hooker feared he had played his last Six Nations game, having been dropped from the squad as a consequence of England’s 32-18 loss to Ireland in Dublin a year ago. There is a wry smile now but at the time the 31-year-old felt it could be game over: “Genuinely when I was left out the thought that went through my head was: ‘Wow, I might never get another chance to sing the anthem.’ I certainly won’t ever take it for granted again.”
Who knows, maybe that was Jones’s masterplan all along? If so, it was brutal man management and the rejection, in the case of George and others, cut deep. “That was a real low point for me. Eddie suggesting I’d lost that fire in the belly … those were the words he used.” Despite being immediately recalled to the squad inside 24 hours, courtesy of an injury to Exeter’s Luke Cowan-Dickie, the jolt was considerable. “For me it was almost fight or flight. I had to show how much I cared. I was disappointed that Eddie saw – or thought he saw – that I was not as fired up as he’d seen before. I didn’t necessarily agree with him but it gave me that kick to drive on and go and show him that I was.”
The wild, lurching extremes of professional rugby, George believes, are not always fully appreciated by outsiders. Just over two years ago he was starting a World Cup final and representing the domestic champions. A few short months later he was plying his trade in the Championship following Saracens’ enforced relegation and contemplating international oblivion. Even after his autumn reprieve, he was injured against Australia and sidelined for 10 weeks, making his two tries against Italy in Rome all the sweeter.
Up, down, up, down. Now, suddenly, here he is again as vice-captain of England, about to play his 65th red rose Test on Saturday courtesy of another Cowan-Dickie injury. Even for a well-adjusted individual with an expanding rehabilitation and physiotherapy business in Hertfordshire it has been a tricky time. “It has been a bit crazy, to be honest,” he acknowledges. “There’ve been some incredible highs and some pretty serious lows. It’s been a helluva ride.”
Last summer’s British & Irish Lions expedition was also bittersweet: after being asked to captain the touring side against the Sharks in June he was subsequently overlooked for the Tests. Four years previously he started all three in the drawn series against the All Blacks. “Going from the high of captaining the Lions to the low of not being selected in the Tests in two weeks is pretty hard to get your head around,” he says.
A phlegmatic streak has been a prerequisite from his earliest Test days. For all his lineout accuracy, scrummaging strength and bustling ball-carrying, Dylan Hartley’s presence ensured George’s first 19 caps for England were earned as a replacement. His father, Ian, sat on England’s bench nine times without winning a cap so there was a degree of dark humour involved. But it was still striking to see him start for the Lions before Jones had handed him the white No 2 jersey.
Now it almost feels as if he has come full circle, required to prove his pedigree all over again. Much the same applies to Jones’s England. Lose badly to Ireland and France, and another bottom-half championship finish beckons. And given Jones’s response to last year’s defeat in Dublin – by the time George appeared as a second-half replacement his side were 20-6 down – who knows what the fallout might be if history repeats itself?
Complicating things further is that George is great mates – “I count a lot of those guys as close friends” –with, among others, Johnny Sexton and Peter O’Mahony from the 2017 Lions tour. Pointedly ignoring them in the tunnel is not his style – “I’m not that sort of bloke” – but he also knows Sexton and O’Mahony well enough to know how they will be feeling.
“You go in with perceptions of people having played against them and Johnny’s a great example,” George says. “He’s obviously one of the best fly-halves to play the game and he’s very serious in the way he drives the standards of his team. Then you get him off the field and he’ll have a laugh and loves a beer. I really enjoy his company.” And O’Mahony? “Pete is very serious and grumpy on the field – and very serious and grumpy off it. But he’s another close mate so I’m allowed to say that.”
What every English squad member would really love, of course, is a rerun of the crisp, commanding 32-20 win Jones’s side inflicted on Ireland in Dublin in 2019. A positive Covid test will prevent the forwards coach, Richard Cockerill, from attending the game but the messages urging the home team to up their physical intensity and their set-piece accuracy remain unchanged. “Ultimately whenever you play Ireland it’s going to come down to a physicality battle,” says George. “That was something we were disappointed with in Dublin last year. If you look at the template of how you want to play against them you’d look at that first game. We really took the game to them. But at the same time we’re a different team to what we were; we want to give them something they haven’t seen before. We’re aware it needs to be a full, relentless 80-minute performance.”
Powering it all, in addition, will be a rising sense of collective grievance – “It’s funny, you beat Wales at home but suddenly you don’t beat them by enough” – and a last-minute blast of profound individual desire. “I always get very emotional during the anthems,” says George.
“I’m proud to be English, proud to be part of the team and proud to be representing my family. That’s what it’s about for me.” Ireland are daunting opponents but England do not plan to lie down meekly.
