Good morning and welcome to live coverage of England’s announcement of their team to play Wales on Saturday at Twickenham in the 2024 Six Nations, kicking off at 4.45pm. Our scufflers on the ground around Pennyhill Park have winkled out the news that Steve Brothwick is planning on naming the same side that came from behind in Rome to beat Italy 27-24, sticking with the new chaps, Ethan Roots and Fraser Dingwall after their impressive performances, and retaining Tommy Freeman for another run out on the wing. George Ford, who kicked 17 of England’s points, and played much flatter than he had at the World Cup, will start at No 10 leaving Fin Smith, again, to try to shine from the bench.
England recognise that they have a dual mission on Saturday, to win the match but also to try to rebuild bridges with their disaffected home support who finally revolted last autumn after three years of drudgery watching the death throes of the Eddie Jones era and the teething troubles of Borthwick’s first campaigns. England sent out Freddie Steward to talk about a reconnection strategy earlier this week and he acknowledged how critical playing to the crowd will be.
“This is essentially a fresh start,” he said. “We have had our World Cup and we are at the start of a new cycle with fresh faces, new coaches. This is our chance to draw a line in the sand. As players when you play for England you are expected to win and when you don’t win, understandably you don’t have the fans on your side and there was a bit of that in the warm-ups to the World Cup. I would never blame the fans and say they need to lift us. They do that on the back of what we do, so the responsibility is ours.
“During the World Cup when we got to the semi-final it felt like that is what it can be like. As players we want that all the time but we have to put the performances on the field to earn that. The fans are the heartbeat of what we do. We want Twickenham to erupt and we want it to be a place we want to go and play in front of our fans and represent them.”
The focus on kicking bored Twickenham to tears but at the Stadio Olimpico refreshingly there was more enterprise. “We were probably guilty early doors of being too one-dimensional in terms of teams knowing what we were going to do,” Steward said. “But hopefully by evolving the attack it will ask a few more questions of the opposition. For us as players, we want to play winning rugby. Whatever style that is, we want to win Test matches, we want to win tournaments and have successful campaigns.”