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'We've had to watch a few clips you wouldn't enjoy... we've had a recurring theme'
By Josh Raisey
England’s poor discipline is a “recurring theme” that has come out of an “honest” review following defeats to Scotland and Ireland, second-row Ollie Chessum has revealed.
The England squad reconvened on Wednesday having been given a small break after the 42-21 Guinness Six Nations round three defeat to Ireland at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium. The loss all but vanquished any hopes of the title for England, which already seemed unlikely after the 31-20 loss to Scotland the week before.
Speaking to his former England and Leicester Tigers team-mates Dan Cole and Ben Youngs on the For the Love of Rugby podcast inside England’s Pennyhill Park camp, Chessum said that the days after the recent defeat have been “pretty crap”.
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“You see little bits on social media or you watch the game back, and it’s not great,” he said.
“For me, personally, it’s not been a great 48 hours or so. I don’t feel like I had a great game and I imagine there will be a lot of lads that feel the same. That can eat away at you.”
Chessum said that the return to camp was a “big review day,” with a focus on how England can fix any issues when they run out to play Italy at the Stadio Olimpico after the upcoming fallow weekend.
“It’s been honest,” he said. “We’ve had to watch a few clips back that you wouldn’t enjoy watching back. But that’s the nature of it. Then it’s like: ‘how do we get better at this? What does this look like for us next week?'”
An issue that the British and Irish Lions lock said has been a “theme” is England’s discipline.
Steve Borthwick’s side have conceded 34 penalties so far this Championship, only one fewer than Wales and twice as many as leaders France. On top of that, they have received more yellow cards than any other team this year, with six (although one became a red card to Henry Arundell as it was his second yellow card of the match).
This is an issue the 25-year-old lock described as a “huge one for us”.
He said: “We can’t review everything in a day, you can’t review everything every game, whether you win or lose. But you’ve got to pick out those key areas that either we’ve had a recurring theme where we’ve not been where we want to, or, in the context of the Italy game, what will be massive for us.
“We’ve had two yellow cards in the last two games [and a further two against Wales] and when you’re playing against top teams, that’s going to cost you when you haven’t got men on the field. That’s obviously a huge one for us.
“We need to bring that penalty count down and that then changes the momentum of some key moments of the game at the weekend.”
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