England centre Ollie Lawrence believes Steve Borthwick’s men can be even better against France than they were in a stunning Six Nations win over Ireland.
Marcus Smith’s drop-goal, with more than 80 minutes on the clock, secured a 23-22 success to the delight of a capacity Twickenham crowd of over 81,000 on Saturday.
It also capped England’s best performance of Borthwick’s 20-match reign as head coach, for all the team finished third at last year’s World Cup, with Lawrence scoring the first of the hosts’ three tries as Ireland’s bid for successive Grand Slams was derailed by a display of pace, power and considerable skill.
England will now prepare for the last match of the 2024 tournament, away to France in Lyon on March 16, knowing they have an outside chance of winning the Championship, although Ireland will retain their title if they defeat Scotland in Dublin earlier on ‘Super Saturday’.
“We’ve got a lot more steps to take going forward,” said Lawrence. “Hopefully, we can look to push on for France next week.”
But for an error-strewn 30-21 loss away to Scotland in the third round, England would be eyeing a Grand Slam of their own against ‘Les Bleus’.
‘Let’s have a go’
“We’re happy with the win,” said Lawrence. “Coming to Twickenham, back home, it was really important for us to bounce back after the Scotland game.
“We were really frustrated and disappointed that we didn’t put in our best performance up there.
“We left a lot out there so our mindset coming into this game was that we’re playing against the best team in the world (Ireland) here. This is our home ground, let’s take it to them and bring the physicality and let’s have a go.”
Defeat by Scotland prompted former England captain Will Carling to say the current side were in a “data straitjacket” under Borthwick.
But there was plenty of passion allied to impressive game-awareness under pressure in a match where they tore into Ireland up front and retained their composure even when James Lowe’s 73rd-minute try edged the champions ahead late on.
“There was a lot of external noise that we did touch on throughout the week,” said 24-year-old Bath midfielder Lawrence. “A lot of focus was on trying to shut that up, but also trying to ignore it as much as we can.
“Because when you play well for England everyone is behind you and when you don’t get the result you want everyone can be on your back.”
He added: “The title discussion will be outside noise. All we can do is go to France and try to win that game. That will be our focus for the week.”
