‘It’s horse****’ – Ireland great accuses England camp of ‘charlatan behaviour’

Former Ireland wing Shane Horgan has rubbished the comments made by England over their supposed wont to entertain.

Steve Borthwick’s men go into this weekend’s clash under severe pressure after they suffered a 30-21 defeat to Scotland in Round Three – their fourth successive Calcutta Cup loss.

The Red Rose made a number of errors during that encounter, leading to several questions being raised over their attacking game.

That has been an issue for a number of years now, even before Borthwick took charge, and supporters have unsurprisingly become frustrated.

Expanding their game

There is no doubt that England have attempted to be more expansive in this Six Nations, while the players have continually insisted that they want to play with ball in hand.

It is a different style of rugby to what they employed at the Rugby World Cup in France, but equally it is also not a matter of simply throwing it around with abandon.

The ex-Ireland speedster was on The Good, The Bad and The Rugby podcast alongside Will Greenwood when the former Red Rose centre spoke about the team’s recent soundbites.

“I listened to an interview before Wales and Martin Johnson was on. (Presenter) Mark Chapman was doing it and I think he said: ‘England have talked this week about expressing themselves, Martin’,” Greenwood said.

“I rang him up straight away and was crying with laughter, and I was going, ‘did you just want to spew?’”

That also irked Horgan, who stated: “Honestly, I think it is charlatan behaviour, it’s horse****.”

The 45-year-old compared it to the current Ireland side, who have created an outstanding attack by developing their existing systems and structures.

“If you look at Ireland now, Ireland look like a very progressive and evolved team where they’re throwing the ball around, but that’s only in the last little while,” he said.

“That comes from a real strict, rigid philosophy and game plan that’s established that gives the options that people take.

“It is counter-intuitive. The more structured you are, the more unstructured you can play and the more decision-making you can have.”

Style and structures

There is a suggestion that England are not being completely honest about their attacking game, both in terms of ambition and execution, when Horgan believes that much of their failures are due to issues within the current structures.

“This idea of expressing yourself, you have to have a system in place. Expressing yourself is making the decisions, making the right decisions,” he added.

“It’s not like I get the ball on a whim, I decide to do something crazy and so I’m expressing myself as a rugby player, that’s nonsense.

“The right option could be a hitch kick and taking this guy around the outside or it could be a flick in behind the back – it could be any of those things – but it’s based on a framework which allows you to make decisions based on what’s in front of you.”

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