Ellis Genge has something to get off his chest. After a few pleasantries – his time off at the start of the week was a “nightmare” because his son has chicken pox – he soon finds his stride. The England prop cannot understand the negative reaction to last weekend’s one-point victory in the Calcutta Cup. England’s first win over Scotland in five years, and their second in a row in this year’s Six Nations, ensured they retain an outside chance of winning the title.
“It is difficult as a player to digest the fact that people were disappointed that we just won the Calcutta Cup back after five years,” Genge says. “We won the game and people are still upset about it. It blew my mind, to be honest. Ex-players, recently retired and long retired, and people from years and years ago, I just can’t believe how out of touch they are, the spiel that I’m reading from people saying how off it we are. We won two games on the bounce and you’re upset about it, I don’t get it. Let’s not be naive, you can feel that people were booing when we were playing. It’s the feeling at the moment, for whatever reason, it is the way it is.”
He did not specify but of those ex-players to speak out, Will Greenwood and Ben Youngs have not been particularly glowing while Will Carling described the victory over Scotland as “very ugly”. Genge is only too aware that England rode their luck to beat France before a 16-15 over Scotland which was anything but easy on the eye but his point is that Steve Borthwick’s side have twice squeezed over the line after a sustained period of failing to do so. Of England’s last 19 matches, 15 have been settled by a score or less but they went into the France match having lost their last seven matches to tier one opposition. They might have played more expansively – Genge references the 42-37 defeat by Australia – but the thrust of his argument is that England have found a knack of winning narrowly, yet still they are criticised.
“It’s still sort of like … ‘England only won by a point’, whereas in the last 18 months, every time we’ve lost by a point, we’ve been slandered, and on the weekend we win by a point and it’s the same old story,” says Genge. “So I don’t know, it feels like we can’t win, to be honest. That’s how I feel. It’s like, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. We lost to Australia, everyone was like, ‘Brilliant, look how they move the ball’. But we lost. So who gives a fuck? You lost the game. Do you want to be part of a team that wins every single game by one point? Or would you rather be part of a team that loses every single week, 40 points to 39? I know what type of team I want to be in.
“I understand from a fans’ perspective; what they want to see. They want to see us coming through with back-door offloads and no-look chip-and-chase. But it don’t win Test matches. We won the game. The maddest thing about it is if Finn [Russell] gets that kick at the end I can imagine this would be a very different feeling now. And the fans, I don’t know how they’d feel, but it’s mental. Pitchforks would be out.”
Genge is at pains to say that he values the support of England fans – “I go round clapping them after every game. I love them” – but believes there needs to be a better understanding of what it takes to win Test matches. He cites South Africa’s World Cup semi-final win over England – also 16-15 – and points out how the Springboks were not pilloried for their performance that day.
“I want people to understand I know we are not playing the most loose rugby,” he adds. “I don’t want credit for playing the most loose rugby, I want credit for winning, that is what we are in, we are in a results business, it is black, it is white, you either win or you lose or you draw. But when we win, to have a bitter taste in our mouth is confusing. After four years of trauma, to win something back and almost have a negative feel about it was upsetting for me. This is a professional game and you have to move on.”
Is it specific to England? Other nations would no doubt say they can find themselves in a similar no-win situation but as the assistant coach Kevin Sinfield points out, it is something their footballing counterparts are all too used to. “Yeah, it is [weird],” says Sinfield. “And more so, with being English. Absolutely. Look at the England football team and the amount of stick they get, when they are winning games. They can’t play or won’t play like Barcelona. If you are asking me my standpoint, I am here to win. Of course, utopia is we win and we win by 50 points and we play free-flowing rugby and we throw the ball everywhere. But the reality is that ain’t going to happen.”
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Sweeney has ‘full support’ of RFU board
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The Rugby Football Union’s interim chairman Bill Beaumont has insisted Bill Sweeney has the unanimous support of the board – which will ultimately decide the chief executive’s fate at next month’s special general meeting – in a blow to the grassroots rebels seeking to overthrow him.
While the rebels have succeeded in forcing an SGM, which will be held on 27 March, and have tabled a motion for Sweeney to be removed, it is only the board who can sack the chief executive, irrespective of the outcome of the vote. In an open letter to the RFU’s members, Beaumont has sought to spell out that Sweeney retains the board’s full support and last month the chief executive made clear he has no intentions of resigning.
Citing feedback from the roadshow that he and Sweeney are undertaking across the country, Beaumont has sought to convince members to vote to keep the chief executive in place with the board adding a resolution to the SGM to expedite the RFU’s governance review and devolve more power to the grassroots game.
Beaumont also promises improved communication and financial stability among the planned changes at the union and has taken aim at the Whole Game Union – the organisation seeking to remove Sweeney – insisting that they do not have the clubs’ best interests at heart.
Listing Sweeney’s achievements, the RFU points to his track record over finances, the signing of the Professional Game Partnership, his role in the setting up of the Nations Championship and the union’s commercial growth following the sale of Twickenham’s naming rights to Allianz.
“I urge member clubs to vote in favour of [the new] resolution which can bring about meaningful governance change and against the motion that members have no confidence in the Chief Executive Officer (CEO),” writes Beaumont.
“Any decision relating to the employment of the CEO is the responsibility of the RFU board and the board unanimously supports Bill Sweeney remaining as CEO. This support is based on his achievements to date, highlighted in the document attached, as well as his ability to deliver the RFU’s strategy while being highly motivated to respond and react to what we have heard from you, our members.
“It is worth remembering that the call for an SGM initially came from the Rugby Football Referees Union and some Championship Clubs. The group who now call themselves the Whole Game Union (WGU) have called into question the integrity of fellow volunteers and suggested highly misleading statements about the RFU.”
In response, the WGU said in a statement: “By Sir Bill Beaumont’s own admission, it was only because they left their ivory tower and went on a roadshow that they even began to understand the depth of feeling their neglect of the community game has caused.
“He accuses others of making ‘highly misleading statements’ just a few words after himself falsely claiming that ‘the call for an SGM initially came from the Rugby Football Referees Union and some Championship Clubs’. Quite wrong. The letter calling for an SGM was signed by 152 clubs and members and is supported by scores more at every level and in every region. Those calling for radical change include members of the RFU Council and senior figures in the game.
“It is only because of the Whole Game Union’s ability to corral the dissatisfaction of English Rugby with its leadership that Sir Bill and his Board belatedly discovered the need to go out and meet clubs. None of the proposals in his letter would have been forthcoming if our Union was just a few malcontents stirring a pot. The pot was already boiling. The desperation inherent in this letter to clubs can be summed up by the sudden realisation that they need to make promises to address the points made in the SGM letter.” Gerard Meagher
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The Twickenham faithful have always been difficult to please but perhaps expectations have been distorted by the try-fests that we so often see in the Premiership. “Being able to box clever and being able to fight on the inside and the out, that is a strength of ours; being able to adapt,” Genge adds. “Sometimes the game is ugly and in the last three games we haven’t thrown the ball about and done what the fans want to see every week, but that is Test rugby. If you want to see that, come to Ashton Gate. If you want to see some mental rugby, that’s where you find it. In our last two games we beat France at home and we beat Scotland, but apparently France should have beat us by 20 and Scotland should have beat us as well. I am confused.”
In many ways, against that backdrop, Italy are not the ideal opponents a week on Sunday. England have never lost to Italy and the expectation to win, and win well, is always there against the Azzurri. “I totally agree but maybe four years ago people would have said that,” said Genge. “But I think over the last period of time, they have been brilliant. They beat Wales in Wales. They took a few scalps. So I don’t think they’re a team that people think is a guaranteed win any more.
“Look at Wales on the weekend, everyone was buzzing about how they played against Ireland and they lost by, what, nine points? No one was slamming Wales, were they? But we won by a point and suddenly the headlines were negative for us. It’s a weird spot. I think the world is in a weird place, so it doesn’t surprise me.”
