Maro Itoje hassaid there are no cracks in the England squad despite his spat with Fin Smith during last week’s humiliating defeat by Italy and believes the confrontation demonstrates the harmony within the camp.
Itoje was heard roaring at Smith “don’t argue with me, take the three,” in the 43rd minute of the defeat in Rome with the fly-half eager to kick to the corner and push for a try with England 12-10 to the good. Ellis Genge, one of two vice-captains, also wanted to go for the try but Jamie George, the other, wanted a kick at goal. Itoje vehemently disagreed with Smith and overruled his fly-half, who duly kicked the penalty.
England built an 18-10 lead thanks to another Smith penalty but then unravelled with Sam Underhill and Itoje shown yellow cards and Italy coming from behind to secure a famous 23-18 victory. As a result, to avoid their worst ever Six Nations campaign this weekend England must claim a first away win against France since 2016.
Itoje is adamant that the incident with Smith does not demonstrate any splits within the side. “There’s no crack, there’s no crack between us,” said Itoje. “He’s a good guy and I get on with him very well and I think when you have good relationships with people you’re able to have those sorts of conversations and are able to move on from it pretty quickly. There was no residue from that. Naturally, I guess because of the loss, it was made into a bigger thing than it actually was.
“I actually think it is a good thing that people in the team feel they can express a view and in sport, if anything, that’s the most kosher of fallouts that the world has ever seen. We have had far more blunt conversations between ourselves and other teammates.
“There’s no real biggie. After that interaction, we even laughed about it a little bit on the pitch as well. Fin is my guy. As always when it comes to things, the way I try to do things is I like to hear what my key decision makers think of what is going on and that whoever plays 10 they will obviously have an important role in that.
”I guess we were just discussing all the various options and ultimately my job is to have the final say. I initially asked what we thought we should docorrect both are we’s here, checked with GM and I guess he expressed a view, I expressed a view and I just wanted to quickly move on to the next thing.”
France are seeking to successfully defend their Six Nations title and head into the final weekend on top of the table. They will know precisely what they need to do by the time they kick off against England but it is almost certain that a bonus point win will suffice, making the task facing Steve Borthwick’s side all the more difficult.
“It’s been a difficult Six Nations,” said the England assistant coach Joe El-Abd. “We’re all hurting. It’s not something we wanted and we want to be performing all the time but it shows the strength of the Six Nations and that if you’re a bit off your top level what can happen. We’ve been working hard to see where we went wrong and what we can do to put it right.”
