The former England captain Jamie George has been declared fit for the daunting Six Nations clash with France on Saturday after recovering from a hamstring injury, handing Steve Borthwick a welcome boost as his side seek to “break the dam” after another disheartening defeat.
George missed England’s 27-22 loss against Ireland after picking up the injury in Saracens’ Champions Cup defeat by Castres, capping a miserable week after he had been stripped of the England captaincy six days earlier.
Borthwick had anticipated George would miss England’s first two games but he returns to the squad preparing to host Les Bleus and is considered fit to train. His return will be a fillip given Borthwick bemoaned England’s inexperience after another capitulation in Dublin, extending their unwanted run to seven defeats in nine matches.
George has 97 caps and, though Luke Cowan-Dickie could keep his place at hooker on Saturday, the Saracens veteran’s presence in the squad will be a boost. Borthwick is unlikely to make wholesale changes to his side, who built a 10-5 half-time lead against Ireland only to concede 22 unanswered points, but he will be tempted to experiment with Marcus Smith at full-back and Fin Smith at fly-half from the start given the counterattacking opportunities France offer.
“There is always that balance,” Borthwick said. “This group of players is building and is going to be a very, very good team. I trust this group of players. You can see just how hard they are working for each other and I thought that was a step forward [against Ireland]. Look at how hard they ran and the effort – I can see a team starting to develop among this group.”
France have won their past three matches against England including a 53-10 victory on their last visit to Twickenham. They began their Six Nations campaign with a 43-0 win against Wales on Friday and will arrive in south-west London as heavy favourites. But the back-rower Ben Earl is adamant that, despite England’s miserable run of results, they can turn the corner against Fabien Galthié’s side.
“This group is still amazingly tight,” Earl said. “We’ve played a lot together. We’ve been through a lot of hurt together. We spoke about this week, we’ve been through a lot of hurt. There’s no denying that we’re trying to give our all. It’s never been for a lack of effort.
“I trust in Steve, I trust in the players that we’ve got, that the dam will break and we’ll start getting momentum. The Six Nations is about momentum, winning Test matches is about momentum. We just need to get one. We’ll wait until that, and we’ll keep turning up. We’re not disheartened. I know I keep saying this – the dam will break and we’ll start winning them. And then this whole narrative changes.”
Borthwick, meanwhile, insisted England would carry the fight to the vaunted French. “Look at the way the players went out and attacked that game [against Ireland]; the way they work with the ball,” he said.
“The way we are trying to attack, we can cause teams problems. France are a very, very good defensive team, we know that and it was clear on Friday night. But we want to go out there next weekend and challenge them. We want to play quickly and you can see that we have pace on those edges and we can score tries.