Johnson says England should learn from heavy defeats ahead of Rugby World Cup in Australia next year
Martin Johnson said, while speaking as patron of the Joe Humphries Memorial Trust, that England can take vital lessons from their worst defeats under Steve Borthwick to use at the Rugby World Cup in Australia next year.
England endured a difficult Six Nations campaign, including a 42-21 loss to Ireland at Twickenham and finishing the tournament with a solitary win against Wales, and their Summer Nations Championship schedule began with an away defeat by South Africa before wins over Fiji and Argentina. With a year to the tournament Johnson described the Six Nations as “up and down” under Borthwick and urged that lessons be extracted from the losses. Johnson, who captained England to the Rugby World Cup in 2003 and was head coach from 2008 to 2011, said the negative results should not be dismissed as wasted experience.
“The bad experiences, the losing, it’s not wasted experience,” Johnson said. “You always want to win and they’re horrible at the time, but it shouldn’t be a wasted experience. All experience, good or bad, should go into your memory bank as a player.”
On the psychological and technical value of defeat he added: “The emotional side: ‘We can’t let this happen again because it’s too painful,’ and the technical side: ‘This is why it happened … We now have that as a memory, as something to use.’ All your experiences go in that memory bank. You try to delete the emotional hurt of them, but sometimes that’s quite good to have there.”
Speaking as patron of the Joe Humphries Memorial Trust, which is calling for everyone in sport to get free, life-saving sudden cardiac arrest training during SADS week, Johnson described England’s concluding Six Nations defeat by France in March as “one of the best games of rugby I’ve ever watched”.
On England’s forward pack prospects for the tournament he said: “I think we’re starting to develop some guys, front row, back row. The back five has probably been our strongest area in the last couple of years. If everyone’s fit you’ve got some pretty good depth there. It would be great to go to the tournament with all those guys firing. You’re going to need them at some point, the way the game is now, guys coming off benches is vitally important.”
Asked whether he saw elements of himself in Saracens lock George Martin, Johnson said: “I think he’d give me a good kicking. He is a presence, isn’t he, when he’s there? I remember watching him ramming an All-Black through the ruck and into the No 9. That was a beautiful piece of rugby.” On the subject of Henry Pollock he said: “I don’t get involved in the Henry Pollock chats that go on. I always say for any young player, if you just keep improving and getting yourself to be a world-class player, that’s always a good thing. That’s what you need to do. Get yourself into the position where you’re a top-drawer player, and when they talk about the best in the world, your name gets mentioned. That’s never a bad place to be.”
On the tournament buildup and rising media interest, the former Leicester second-row said the attention could be irritating but unavoidable: “You always get asked about it as a player, and it used to annoy me a bit … most things annoyed me a bit, really. But it does start to loom and these [Nations Championship and Six Nations] games are all part of your collective memory, as a team and a player.”
England’s first match at the World Cup is scheduled for 2 October against Tonga in Brisbane, a fixture Johnson referenced while discussing how recent internationals contribute to the squad’s collective memory and preparation.