England to tap into Manu Tuilagi’s ‘wisdom’ for final Six Nations appearance
England's Manu Tuilagi during a training session at the LNER Community Stadium, York.
Manu Tuilagi will stand up in front of the England squad tonight in Lyon and deliver an emotional address to fire them up for tomorrow’s Le Crunch encounter.
Wrecking ball centre Tuilagi has been recalled to the squad for what is likely to be his 60th and final cap before joining the exodus of English players overseas, with reports linking him to a move to the Top 14 and potentially Moana Pasifika.
Thirteen years after marking his debut with a try against Wales at Twickenham, the plan is to bring the Sale Sharks centre off the bench to face France at the Groupama Stadium.
Ireland will retain the Six Nations Championship with even a losing bonus point at home to Scotland, but should they fall short, England could win the title with victory over Les Bleus.
Pulling on the heartstrings
It is a long shot, but team captain Jamie George intends to use every tool at his disposal to get England back up to the emotional pitch they hit to beat the Irish last weekend.
That includes tugging on the heartstrings of Tuilagi by calling on the 32-year-old to tell his teammates what playing for England has meant to him since 2011.
“Manu will go down as one of the best centres to have ever played for England; I’m pretty confident to be able to say that,” George said.
“I don’t think anything’s sorted by any means about his future, I don’t know whether any decisions have been made. But if this is his last game for England, I’ll be pulling on him to speak about that in our captain’s meeting.
“Something that is really special for me is that he doesn’t say an awful lot, but what he does say is gold. The second he starts talking, people listen; it’s quiet, and more often than not, it’s absolute wisdom.”
Tuilagi has been a massive figure in the Red Rose squad throughout his career, but a succession of injuries restricted him to 59 caps.
He scored tries against France in his first two Six Nations meetings with them – and, significantly, was missing when Fabien Galthie’s men ran amok at Twickenham last March.
George added: “It’s not even whether this is Manu’s last game for England or not; he hasn’t played for England for a little period of time now. So, coming back in, how do you feel? What does this game mean to you?
“I don’t know what the future holds for anyone, none of us know what the future holds. This could be my last game for England, it could be some others’ last game for England. There is no tomorrow in that respect, and sometimes it’s good to use that, utilise that.”
France v England preview: Les Bleus’ behemoths to overwhelm Red Rose in thrilling Six Nations finale
Getting it emotionally right
George knows beating Ireland with England’s best performance since the 2019 World Cup semi-final win over New Zealand is absolutely no guarantee of success against a resurgent France playing in their own backyard.
Not only have the French won the last two games between the sides, they handed England a record Twickenham defeat last year, hammering Steve Borthwick’s side 53-10 – and last Sunday finally shook off their World Cup hangover to beat Wales impressively in Cardiff.
“We got some things really right emotionally last week in the build-up, and probably a lot of that came from sticking two fingers up to some people who were saying some bad things about us after the Scotland game, and having two weeks of build-up into that,” George said.
“You can use different things to drive emotion. Whenever you’re playing for England you’re obviously proud and you want to show that. But there’s obviously other tools that you can use and other avenues that you can use, and Manu’s certainly been that throughout his career for England.”
Asked where winning the Six Nations would rank in his career, the Saracens hooker said: “It would certainly be the greatest achievement of my England career so far.”
He knows the odds are long on Ireland blowing up against a Scotland side coming off the back of defeat to Italy in Rome. But whilst there’s a chance, George says England will shoot for it.
“Let’s talk about what the possibilities are but not allow it to distract us,” the hooker said. “What might happen, what Ireland might do in the Scotland game is out of our control. What we can do is make sure we use the possibility of winning a trophy as motivation that we’re in the right headspace come the game.”
