Matt Dawson credits Jamie George for Steve Borthwick’s and England’s ‘mindset change’

Rugby World Cup winner Matt Dawson believes that England have “changed their mindset” during the 2024 Six Nations.

The great scrum-half also credited Jamie George, who the 51-year-old believes has been an influential figure in helping Steve Borthwick alter his game plan.

There is no doubt that the Red Rose have been more expansive this year, following the conservative style which they employed at the Rugby World Cup, but there were murmurings of discontent after the Scotland disaster.

Defensive priority

A story surfaced that an England player only touched the ball once during a training session, with Borthwick focusing most of his energy on getting the defence right.

However, Dawson insisted that what they produced against Ireland on Saturday would not have been possible had they negated the attacking side of the sport.

“It all starts from the captain George, who wants to play. He realises the talents in the team and if you are going to beat the best sides you have to be able to score tries,” he said in his BBC Sport column.

“I think head coach Steve Borthwick has just realised the data driven analysis of getting yourself in the right position by defence and kicking the ball is all well and good, but you still have to have the attack and score tries.

“They have obviously changed their mindset and spent loads of time attacking. You don’t just change that in a couple of sessions.

“It has been an obvious turnaround in their training regime and what a difference it makes getting up in the morning knowing you are practising attacking rugby rather than defence. Their energy was in stark contrast to where it has been.”

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‘Statement’ was the watchword Dawson used in reference to England’s victory, which kept them in Six Nations title contention.

“It was a statement for everyone within the camp, a statement to the doubters, a statement to the rugby world and a statement to the supporters,” he said.

“I don’t think anybody, from the fans, to the pundits and the media has doubted England could play like that. It has all been about an amazing bunch of players that have been playing so well for their clubs in the Premiership and in Europe but struggling in the white jersey.”

‘Ireland blown away’

Dawson felt that the make-up of the back five was key to the result, with youngster George Martin coming into the second-row to allow Ollie Chessum to shift to blindside.

“Your fundamentals are the set-piece, line-out and scrum and England blew Ireland away with the selection of (Ollie) Chessum on the flank and (George) Martin and Maro Itoje in the second row – Ireland had nowhere to go,” the ex-scrum-half added.

“That was vintage Steve Borthwick going back to his super strength of line-out knowledge. They could kick to touch at will knowing they would have a 30-40% chance of disrupting Ireland’s ball.

“The Irish defence were just at sixes and sevens, they couldn’t rush up because England would truck it up with Martin, Chessum or Ollie Lawrence, and if they backed off, England were at pace and Furbank was causing havoc in the 13 channel as a runner.

“It was difficult afternoon for Ireland to manage England’s wave of attack because everybody was a threat.”

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