{"id":786970,"date":"2026-09-30T02:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T02:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/786970\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T02:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T02:08:11","slug":"england-can-take-vital-lessons-from-worst-defeats-into-rugby-world-cup-says-johnson-england-rugby-union-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/786970\/","title":{"rendered":"England can take vital lessons from worst defeats into Rugby World Cup, says Johnson | England rugby union team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martin Johnson believes England\u2019s most painful defeats under Steve Borthwick can benefit them at the Rugby World Cup<\/a> in Australia next year.<\/p>\n

England endured some disastrous moments during the Six Nations this year, most notably the 42-21 defeat by Ireland at Twickenham<\/a>, and finished the tournament with a solitary win against Wales. Summer Nations Championship fixtures began with an away defeat by the world champions, South Africa, before victories against Fiji and Argentina.<\/p>\n

With a year until the tournament \u2013 England\u2019s opener is scheduled for 2 October against Tonga in Brisbane \u2013 Johnson acknowledged the Six Nations was \u201cup and down\u201d under Borthwick but said vital lessons must be taken from the defeats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bad experiences, the losing, it\u2019s not wasted experience,\u201d said Johnson, who captained England to the Rugby World Cup in 2003, and was head coach from 2008 to 2011. \u201cYou always want to win and they\u2019re horrible at the time, but it shouldn\u2019t be a wasted experience. All experience, good or bad, should go into your memory bank as a player.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe emotional side: \u2018We can\u2019t let this happen again because it\u2019s too painful,\u2019 and the technical side: \u2018This is why it happened \u2026 We now have that as a memory, as something to use.\u2019 All your experiences go in that memory bank. You try to delete the emotional hurt of them, but sometimes that\u2019s quite good to have there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking as patron of the Joe Humphries Memorial Trust<\/a>, which is calling for everyone in sport to get free, life-saving sudden cardiac arrest training during SADS week<\/a>, Johnson said England\u2019s concluding Six Nations defeat by France<\/a> in March was \u201cone of the best games of rugby I\u2019ve ever watched\u201d.<\/p>\n

Regarding England\u2019s prospects of matching the fearsome French and South African forward packs in Australia next year, he said: \u201cI think we\u2019re starting to develop some guys, front row, back row. The back five has probably been our strongest area in the last couple of years.<\/p>\n

Jamie Osborne on his way to scoring Ireland\u2019s fifth try against England at Twickenham in this year\u2019s Six Nations. Photograph: Andrew Matthews\/PA<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everyone\u2019s fit you\u2019ve got some pretty good depth there. It would be great to go to the tournament with all those guys firing. You\u2019re going to need them at some point, the way the game is now, guys coming off benches is vitally important.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Asked if he sees parts of himself in the powerful Saracens lock, George Martin, Johnson said: \u201cI think he\u2019d give me a good kicking. He is a presence, isn\u2019t he, when he\u2019s there? I remember watching him ramming an All-Black through the ruck and into the No 9. That was a beautiful piece of rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n

On whether Henry Pollock\u2019s ability justifies the considerable hype<\/a>, meanwhile, Johnson said of the Northampton and England back-rower: \u201cI don\u2019t get involved in the Henry Pollock chats that go on. I always say for any young player, if you just keep improving and getting yourself to be a world-class player, that\u2019s always a good thing. That\u2019s what you need to do. Get yourself into the position where you\u2019re a top-drawer player, and when they talk about the best in the world, your name gets mentioned. That\u2019s never a bad place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding the buildup to the tournament next year and increasing interest in the media, the former Leicester second-row said: \u201cYou always get asked about it as a player, and it used to annoy me a bit \u2026 most things annoyed me a bit, really. But it does start to loom and these [Nations Championship and Six Nations] games are all part of your collective memory, as a team and a player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martin Johnson believes England\u2019s most painful defeats under Steve Borthwick can benefit them at the Rugby World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-786970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}