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What the England pack can expect against Georgia
By Josh Raisey
England are clearly not taking this fallow week in the Six Nations lightly, as they are due to train with the Georgian rugby team in Oxford.
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Eddie Jones’ men will be put through their paces as they will go toe-to-toe with a notoriously physical team. This comes after a brutal Six Nations encounter with Wales at the weekend, where the physicality from both sides was certainly not lacking.
This is not the first time that England have trained with Georgia, as Jones did the very same thing in last season’s Championship. The Australian is renowned for being a tough taskmaster in training, and this is an example of that, as the intensity will not lessen.
This is how Georgia and England got on last year when they trained together:
What is noticeable about that training session, and will surely be the case this week, is the heavy emphasis on scrummaging. That is no surprise given Georgia’s prowess and reputation in that department.
However, what is strange is that that was not necessarily a weakness of England’s at the weekend. They did win a penalty in the scrum, but it was not exactly a strength of theirs either. The majority of penalties they conceded came in other areas of the field.
Jones may nevertheless feel that there was something lacking in that Wales game that can be remedied by training with Georgia. While this surely would have been planned in advance of the match against Wales, there is a lot that Jones can draw from that game.
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While England came out an appeared to be the more dominant side physically at the Principality Stadium, they faded throughout the match as the Welsh grew in strength. This will be a concern of Jones’, and he will hope that some brutal training sessions will only help England.
The question remains as to whether England would have had this camp had they beaten Wales at the weekend, but they didn’t, and Jones will hope this will get them back on the right track.
Watch: Eddie Jones ‘Wales deserved to win’
