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What England really made of this week's Wales strike threat
By Liam Heagney
England coach Steve Borthwick has revealed he always planned that this Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations match versus Wales in Cardiff would go ahead. Ken Owens’ Welsh squad had been involved in a contractual standoff with the WRU over the lack of financial arrangements beyond the end of the current season across the four regional sides.
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With a host of players out of contract and facing an uncertain future in 2023/24, the Wales team skippered by Owens threatened to go on strike and not play in this weekend’s round three championship match. The dire situation forced Wales coach Warren Gatland to shelve plans to name his XV on Tuesday and it took emergency talks with the WRU on Wednesday for the threat over Saturday’s match to be removed.
Borthwick watched the controversy evolve from the safe haven of the England training base at Pennyhill and after naming his XV on Thursday to play Wales, he gave his view on the strike threat that generated fears that Gatland’s side would forfeit the match.
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“We planned that it was always going to go ahead. Nothing has changed from our perspective,” said Borthwick when asked about the uncertainty that had surrounded the fixture until Wednesday evening. He went on to voice his sympathies for the Welsh players caught up in the contractual mess.
“Myself and everybody involved in the England team, we have incredible sympathy for what the Welsh players have gone through. No professional athlete should have to deal with that level of uncertainty and anxiety and we really sympathise with them. From our point of view we focused on the games and being the best team we possibly can be. The other stuff we can’t contol, so just concentrate on the stuff we can do.”
Borthwick worked with Gatland as his assistant on the British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand. They now go head-to-head for the first time as Test-level head coaches. “I had the opportunity to work with Warren on the Lions in 2017. It was a great opportunity to work with him and understand a little bit more about how he sees the game and clearly I have a lot of respect for him.
“I have been very clear with what we are trying to do with the England team, we are trying to rebuild it and this is only a few weeks into that rebuild and it is a different situation to other teams are in. Certainly, they [Wales] have picked a team that is packed full of experience. They have got a huge number of caps in their team. That just added to the excitement of what a fantastic fixture this is.
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“What a privilege for us all to be involved in a fixture like this… We can’t wait to get down to Cardiff, there has been a buzz around training all week. I could sense it last week and as you came in at the start of this week you could really feel it.”
