The secrets from England’s Calcutta Cup training at Twickenham

England want to strengthen their relationship with fans but did Twickenham session offer any technical insights?

Just over a week until England face Scotland and bid to go three from three to begin this Six Nations, they held an open training session at Twickenham. An uplifting morning provided a glance at their Calcutta Cup build-up, as well as their mission to engage fans.
Here is what we learned …
Teachers in training will tell you that lesson plans are the bane of their lives. Professional coaches must lay out their ideas just as diligently to ensure that training sessions run as smoothly as possible. Those who played under Steve Borthwick at Leicester Tigers were struck by the clarity and intensity of preparations in the week. That comes from planning.
Over half an hour before England’s players emerged from the tunnel on Friday morning, the pitch was dotted by cones and poles. Tom Tombleson, a long-serving conditioning expert, was among the first out. Richard Wigglesworth marched around to double-check parameters and Felix Jones strode through one defensive drill, apparently shadowing what he would be asking of his players and making slight amendments. Andrew Strawbridge, in his final session before his skills consultancy stint ends, seemed to be there as a sounding board. We rarely get an insight on the arduous life of a coach, but here was a brief glimpse.
For a brief spell after the warm-ups, which ended with passing practice across the middle of the field, Alex Mitchell and Danny Care split off from the other backs and joined their heavies. The scrum-halves scooted away from breakdowns and practised linking with pods of three forwards, straightening to lift shoulder passes to tight runners or throwing the ball flatter and wider.
Meanwhile, Felix Jones took the other backs through something he had prepared earlier, pretending to pass a ball from the base of a ruck to spark off a defence drill. In lines of three, the players were urged to shoot up from the try-line before changing direction after five metres. They would then back-pedal and go again, twice more each. Borthwick paid particularly close attention to these shuttles, which obviously aimed to replicate blitz defence. The most effective of these systems impart fearful pressure early in attacks, but also on the phase after opponents have found space, because their backs fire back behind the offside line, readjust and press again.
Scotland are bound to have their moments in round three. Even so, England will aim to dictate with their defence. And they are making progress. Early in the conditioned game, Chandler Cunningham-South charged up to pluck an interception. Clearly a popular figure already, just two caps into his Test career, the back-rower earned an audible cheer. Murrayfield will be more hostile, of course, but England appear to be tracking well.
Although Marcus Smith spent most of the training session in the corner of the dead-ball area with a physio, the back of his right leg upholstered by black strapping, both Ollie Lawrence and Manu Tuilagi were heavily involved. Luke Cowan-Dickie, sporting a peroxide-blonde dye-job, was as well. Fraser Dingwall was said to be ‘managing load’. The centre warmed up on his own, gradually working up to a sprint. Lawrence and Smith were listed in the rehabilitation section of this week’s squad announcement. The former certainly seems to be closer to contention for the Calcutta Cup.
You can read too much into the colour of bib that any given player is wearing. Trust me. Tom Harrison, the England scrum coach, dropped these in two piles either side of halfway prior to the session, while players were limbering up on their own. Only when the group split in two for a conditioned game, refereed by Karl Dickson with Aled Walters buzzing about, did the bibs seem to mean anything. And even then, the two designated teams mixed up constantly.
At one stage, George Ford was in a yellow bib as part of a side that featured Elliot Daly and Tom Roebuck on the wings with George Furbank at full-back. Ben Earl, Ethan Roots, Cunningham-South and Maro Itoje occupied that team, too. Opposite them was a midfield of Fin Smith, Max Ojomoh and Tuilagi. But players moved in and out in a whirlwind, taking breathers on the touchline before being reintroduced. One senses that the line-up for Scotland will be finalised over the weekend, and in private.
Just before 8.30am, around an hour-and-a-half before the training session was due to begin, excited spectators stretched back in a queue from the gates on Whitton Road. The half-term crowd was young, with plenty of parents evidently spying an opportunity to bring their children on a morning out. From the apparel on display, there were attendees from clubs as diverse as Basingstoke and Newcastle Falcons. Food trucks lined the concourse, where one could grab a photo with the Gallagher Premiership trophy. Kids from Old Cranleighan RFC, who have enjoyed a particularly strong season for junior sign-ups, were kitted out on the touchline for the session itself.
Cheers greeted the players as they arrived on the pitch, led by Jamie George, George Ford and Joe Marler and introduced by Ugo Monye, the event’s master of ceremonies. Eventually, some 10,000 supporters filled the lower bowl of the West Stand and more would have joined remotely. O2 Inside Line, the Rugby Football Union’s in-house video channel, streamed proceedings with Topsy Ojo hosting and Sarah Hunter and Dylan Hartley offering comment. Kevin Sinfield and Richard Hill, as well as a group of players, gave interviews and there were chances to grab selfies and signatures later on.
March 1, the Friday of the second Six Nations fallow week, will stage another of these open training sessions at LNER Stadium in York, a venue for the 2025 World Cup. As of Monday, 7,000 tickets had already been sold. Some still remain available online, and can be snapped up for a £1 booking fee. The hard work to stage these events is worth it, because they represent a tangible way of strengthening connections with fans. It must be said that moving one to the north of the country felt particularly important as well. George, who has been on a personal crusade to engage supporters, chatted to plenty of well-wishers. The charismatic captain would later post news that his mother had died. He evidently defied a difficult week to be at Twickenham.