George Ford has revealed his most satisfying thing about England beating New Zealand on Saturday and added how something he noticed against Argentina last July has now become a major influence four months later.
Steve Borthwick’s team is currently savouring their seminal 33-19 win over the All Blacks. The victory was their 10th in succession and it has left them firm favourites to win the upcoming 2026 Six Nations.
England were beaten by New Zealand in three consecutive matches last year, but their improvement over the last 12 months resulted in them emphatically turning the tables last weekend at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham.
The 32-year-old Ford copped most of the flak last November when his late missed kicks proved crucial in the All Blacks escaping with a narrow victory, but he was on top of his game on this occasion.
“A big result for us…”
The fly-half finished up being named man of the match following a display that included two crucial first-half drop goals that helped England cut a 12-point deficit to just one by the interval, and he has now made an appearance on the latest For The Love Of Rugby podcast.
Speaking with Ben Youngs and Dan Cole, two of his former England and Leicester colleagues, for more than an hour, Ford declared: “The most pleasing thing, satisfying thing was the nature of the game as well, being 12-0 down at home to New Zealand when we actually thought we started the game quite well but the scoreboard didn’t suggest that, and then how we managed to get ourselves back into it, 12-11 at half-time.
“When the scoreboard is putting pressure on you, sometimes the easy thing is to go and chase it, and I thought the most impressive thing from the boys was we slowly but surely built our way back into the game to make sure there was only one point in it at half-time, which I thought was a big result for us.
“We knew we would gather a bit of momentum for the second half and then we had our bench coming on who had been brilliant all campaign.”
Ford went on to reveal how head coach Borthwick had them primed to cope with Saturday’s first-half crisis. “If you go into the game with a plan and you believe that is the best way for winning the game or the best way to build pressure to score points, why should that change 15 minutes in unless there is something unbelievably obvious you need to change?
“If it was the right plan 15 minutes ago, why is it not the right plan now? But it does test you mentally. Scoreboard pressure is a massive thing, and to be 12-0 down at home in the first 20 minutes isn’t ideal, but it takes some discipline. It takes an understanding of the game; it’s like a process.
“We don’t have to change the momentum in the next play; we can do it in the next five, 10, 15 minutes. That is what Steve saw. As a coach, he is so incredibly smart and he prepares these messages during the week for the team about how things aren’t going to be perfect and we are going to be under the pump and it’s how do we want to be in the moments. We prepare for that in the week, so hopefully when it comes we can deal with it.”
England coped perfectly as it turned out. “There is a process in those huddles when things don’t go your way where you calm down and get composed, and the next thing is getting the right messages across of what we need to do next. We started the game well and ended up 5-0 down, and then we went kick-off out on the full, 50:22, try, 12-0 down. That is what can happen in a Test match sometimes.
“It’s worst-case scenario a little bit but even though that stuff happened, the way we wanted to play and the messages didn’t change because we still felt that was the right way to go and play and win the game. We wanted to be really clear on that.
“We were winning the kicking battle and the contestable game pretty well. I thought we were transitioning off that, getting some attack pretty well. And then when Ollie (Lawrence) scored his try, there were about 10 minutes left in that first half, it was like let’s go and get another three, another five or six and make sure this is close at half-time, we’ll have a bit of a reset then and get going again. That was it, calm and composed. I thought the leaders were good in that moment.”
Ford added that the logic behind his double drop-goal blast was to conserve energy. “We said during the week we want to save boys’ legs so that when we do attack in the 22, we are ready and raring to go. This is where the drop goals come into it.
“You have good field position, you feel like you have got speed of ball, you feel like you have got momentum, but New Zealand are a good team on phase defence and the more you hold the ball, the more you are exhausting yourself. So it’s right, let’s take something good back.”
Those kicks were central in having England primed to step on the second-half accelerator, and the ambitious variety they wielded in attack was something that Ford heaped praise on Lee Blackett for. The ex-Wasps boss only joined the England set-up temporarily last July while Richard Wigglesworth was working with the British and Irish Lions.
However, so instant a hit did he prove to be in Argentina that Borthwick convinced the RFU to buy the coach out of his contract with Premiership title winners Bath and instead work full-time with England.
“The best thing and the way Lee does it is he is so subtle with his variety and he is smart with it, he’ll sit down with the 10s at the start of the week and say ‘this is what I am thinking’ and he will show us the evidence,” Ford said.
“He’ll say this is why this play will be good for us and shows us the opposition defence. He’ll probably show us this play run really well in the past by another team, whatever it might be. He is not ‘this is what we are doing, 100 per cent, I am telling you to do this’; he will go, ‘What do you think?’
“If you don’t think it has got any value, you are the guys running it out on the field. If you don’t want it, you don’t have to have it, but this is my suggestion. I noticed this in Argentina, Lee loves the attacking intent of let’s have a lineout play, let’s have a first phase, let’s go and break someone down. Very rarely now do we have set-up plays really.
“It’s ‘this is our best lineout, this is our variation on delivery, this is our best strike’. If we execute like we know we can, at least we are going to get one-on-one and speed of ball. Then you have got momentum in your game.
“It makes a massive difference to us as 10s, we have got full belief and confidence that Lee is 100 per cent in knowing what he is doing, and then we drive that in the week. We just jump on the back of Lee and that’s a brilliant thing to do.”
Ford added: “Lee has been unbelievable. He has made such a difference. His outlook on the game is so positive, it’s so attacking, it’s so let’s go and put teams under pressure with ball in hand at the right time. Let’s get the ball in Manny’s hands [Immanuel Feyi-Waboso]. Let’s get the ball in Ollie Lawrence’s hands, Tom Roebuck’s hands.
“But let’s make good decisions as well. He is saying that when I review this game, I want to look at the clips and say I don’t want us to have missed one opportunity to go. Everything is a decision, but he backs the boys. He commits to it and understands they might get one or two wrong in the game., But he doesn’t go right, let’s go into ourselves. It’s just keep playing, keep making decisions.
“He challenged us before the game to score one counterattack, one set-piece try, for example. We ended up scoring two set-piece tries. But just so positive. Let’s go and break them, let’s go and score, he has added great value to us.”