England vs Italy Six Nations: Anthony Watson set to propel England to a new level against Italy
The young wing is blessed with once-in-a-generation attacking gifts
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Your support makes all the difference.Stuart Lancaster would have needed an unusually good reason to tinker with the England starting line-up following the deeply resourceful Six Nations victory over Wales a week ago.
The head coach happily admitted yesterday that he had been unable to find one. But he still wants to see changes – in pizzazz, if not in personnel – against Italy at Twickenham tomorrow, with the wing Anthony Watson at the forefront of his thinking.
Watson was quite something at the Millennium Stadium: if the overarm inside flick he delivered after plucking the ball out of the Cardiff night sky had ended up in red-rose hands rather than been intercepted by a retreating Welshman, all betting on the “try of the tournament” award would have been suspended. But Lancaster believes England have barely scratched the surface with a youngster blessed with once-in-a-generation attacking gifts.
“He’s been thrown in at the deep end as far as international rugby is concerned,” the coach said of the 20-year-old Bath back, “yet he’s been so good at mastering the basics. His ability to understand our defensive system and fit into it quickly, his aerial skills... those aspects have been exceptional. Yet we still haven’t found a way of giving him the ball in space, which is his main point of difference.”
In other words, there is far more to come, once a way is found of unlocking that space.
Lancaster has been keeping a close watch on Watson for the last three years: during the autumn Test series at Twickenham in 2013, a year before awarding the youngster a first cap, the coach was quietly talking him up as a member of his World Cup back division. Not merely a “potential” member, but a “probable” member.
Any eyebrows raised then are now back in their normal positions. For all the many and varied talents of Chris Ashton, Jack Nowell, Marland Yarde and Christian Wade, there is only one front-runner for the No 14 shirt.
The one-time Chelsea football trialist would have been picked earlier had he talked as good a game as he was playing. However, when Lancaster welcomed him into the England camp and sat him down for a fireside chat – the coach makes a point of giving his young wannabes what might be called the Sigmund Freud treatment in an effort to work out what makes them tick – the wing came across as the teenager he was. Nowell was far more hard-bitten in his approach and it was this that gave the Exeter man the advantage during last year’s Six Nations.
It is a very different story now. “I’ve definitely grown in confidence,” Watson said. “I understand that the mental side of rugby is paramount. Years ago, I’d have been massively nervous going into a hostile environment like the Millennium Stadium. Last week, I think I struck the right balance between calmness and excitement. But everything is about getting better, isn’t it? Wales went well for me but I can’t afford to allow my game to stagnate.”
Chelsea’s loss looks like being England’s gain, not that Watson ever saw himself as a professional footballer. “I was a striker but a pretty rubbish one,” he admitted. “I think I was just quick. The main thing was trying to outdo my older brother Marcus [who played at England Under-20 level] as a rugby player. Anyway, my dad [Duncan, a former Saracens flanker] always preferred watching union to football.”
Italy, forced into a reshuffling of their back division, will have to watch every move Watson makes at Twickenham. Points difference cost England a first Six Nations title under Lancaster last season and, for all their talk of “laying the foundations” before building their attacking game tomorrow, they are determined not to be caught in the same trap. It is a mindset that should play into Watson’s hands.
Sadly, for one of his clubmates at Bath, the tight-head prop David Wilson, life is not so good. The 29-year-old was scheduled to undergo neck surgery today and is not expected to return much before the end of the season. Wilson’s misfortune gives his Rec understudy Henry Thomas and Newcastle’s Kieran Brookes a golden opportunity to state their cases ahead of the World Cup training camp in the summer.
“Kieran is already in the squad and now has the chance of an extended run, while Henry’s improvement gives us depth in a position where we’ve been a bit thin,” Lancaster said. “It’s a shame for David but he should be fit for the camp.”
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