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Video: What Itoje said in beaten England Murrayfield changing room

(Photo by Ross MacDonald/SNS Group via Getty Images)

The latest episode in the weekly RFU video series on the England team has revealed that Maro Itoje was the player who rallied his disappointed teammates after they had returned to their dressing room seats following last Saturday’s loss to Scotland in the opening round of the Guinness Six Nations.

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England had somehow conspired to allow a 17-10 lead end in a 20-17 defeat following a dramatic closing 15 minutes at Murrayfield where they lost their focus and made a series of game-losing errors.

Those mistakes included a yellow card, the concession of a penalty try, a general level of disquiet over the use of their replacements, and the spurning of a long-range penalty kick at the posts in favour of a tactical kick down the line where they lost the resulting lineout.  

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Their immediate reaction following the dramatic loss was captured on video by the O2 Inside Line | The Next Level documentary series, the RFU-sanctioned production that has been providing a spy-on-the-wall type insight to Jones’ squad.    

Seated in the dressing room in the position allocated to the England No4 with Nick Isiekwe sitting to his left in the No5 spot and coach Jones to his right standing underneath a television in the corner, Itoje told his teammates how they needed to react as their championship title hopes were far from over.

“What matters is what is in this circle,” began Itoje, a player who last year was tipped as Lions captaincy material but that honour went to Alun Wyn Jones while Courtney Lawes and Tom Curry have recently skippered England in the absence of the injured Owen Farrell. “What matters is what is in this circle, fellas, so how we react, how we stick together, how we react, how we stick together. 

“This tournament, we have been here before, we have lost the first game, we bounced straight back and had a good tournament thereafter. So obviously we are disappointed. Obviously, we are sad that we lost but this tournament, it depends how we react. And how we react is we stick together and we get tighter. We use this game to get tighter.” 

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England fell to a fifth-place finish last year after they lost their opening match to Scotland, losing three of their five matches across the campaign, but they bounced back from a first-round loss to France in 2020 to lift the title on points difference from the French.  

All the leadership talk by Jones in recent weeks in the absence of Farrell and Lawes has centred on stand-in skipper Curry and the support of Luke Cowan-Dickie, Ellis Genge and Henry Slade.

Itoje, though, was given kudos by Jones in midweek as England began preparation for their round two match away to Italy next Sunday. “Maro has got a massive role in the team,” insisted the head coach. “He is in charge of the team communication which is a session of the week where the players get together and talk about how they want to be for the week. 

“It’s an important session done with our sports psychologist and he also runs the lineout so he has got two big portfolios. In terms of his own performance (against Scotland), he has played better games but he is not far away from being at his best.” 

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J
JW 1 hour ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Where? I remember saying "unders"? The LNR was formed by the FFR, if I said that in a way that meant the 'pro' side of the game didn't have an equal representation/say as the 'amateur' side (FFR remit) that was not my intent.


But also, as it is the governing body, it also has more responsibility. As long as WR looks at FFR as the running body for rugby in France, that 'power' will remain. If the LNR refuses to govern their clubs use of players to enable a request by FFR (from WR) to ensure it's players are able to compete in International rugby takes place they will simply remove their participation. If the players complain to the France's body, either of their health and safety concerns (through playing too many 'minutes' etc) or that they are not allowed to be part in matches of national interest, my understanding is action can be taken against the LNR like it could be any other body/business. I see where you're coming from now re EPCR and the shake up they gave it, yes, that wasn't meant to be a separate statement to say that FFR can threaten them with EPCR expulsion by itself, simply that it would be a strong repercussion for those teams to be removed (no one would want them after the above).


You keep bringing up these other things I cannot understand why. Again, do you think if the LNR were not acting responsibly they would be able to get away with whatever they want (the attitude of these posters saying "they pay the players")? You may deem what theyre doing currently as being irresponsible but most do not. Countries like New Zealand have not even complained about it because they've never had it different, never got things like windfall TV contracts from France, so they can't complain because theyre not missing out on anything. Sure, if the French kept doing things like withholding million dollar game payments, or causing millions of dollars of devaluation in rights, they these things I'm outlining would be taking place. That's not the case currently however, no one here really cares what the French do. It's upto them to sort themselves out if they're not happy. Now, that said, if they did make it obvious to World Rugby that they were never going to send the French side away (like they possibly did stating their intent to exclude 20 targeted players) in July, well then they would simply be given XV fixtures against tier 2 sides during that window and the FFR would need to do things like the 50/50 revenue split to get big teams visiting in Nov.

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