Inside a brilliantly brutal England scrum session

Telegraph

6 days ago

'Stay in the abyss!' screams Tom Harrison, as two of his England forward packs, having thundered into each other moments earlier, wrestle and heave for scrummaging supremacy. When Harrison finally, mercifully, calls for the two packs to break, all four props are spent, but there is no rest for the wicked; two more must go again while the other two are subbed out for the remaining pair.
This is up close and personal with England's scrum, which performed so impressively in their first Test victory over Argentina in La Plata last Saturday. Telegraph Sport has been granted access to England's main training session ahead of their second Test against Los Pumas in San Juan this weekend, the first time the travelling media have been welcomed behind the scenes like this in at least a decade.
England only hit five scrums over the course of the session – they will only do 10 all week – and, as Harrison explains later, scrum machines have been consigned to history. Each of England's five scrums here is interspersed with live line-out maul practice and each one is as taxing as the next. And, to make matters worse still, scrummaging comes as the final part of England's main training day – with the front-rowers even changing their boots to prepare for it – with the belief that the players have to be able to execute set-piece excellence while fatigued.
'Scrums have previously been at the start of the session so that the players have lactic build-up in their legs: 'Now, go and do the session and run.',' Harrison explains. 'But, now it's at the end of the session: 'You've run, you're fatigued, can you now execute with that?'
'Machines are really good for timing but they don't push back so you can't change the angle on it too much. And, [we have] limited time. On a Tuesday, we will do seven live scrums maximum; if we're doing that against a machine then I'm only working eight players [whereas live is 16].'
Harrison is England's scrum guru and leads the session but head coach Steve Borthwick is never far from the action. Although Borthwick is responsible for overseeing all facets of England's game, as a former international second row himself it would feel remiss were he not to be involved in some guise. With Harrison taking a vantage point where a referee might traditionally stand, Borthwick views on his haunches from behind, clearly interested in the body positions and manoeuvring of the back five of England's pack.
Fin Baxter and Asher Opoku-Fordjour have an almighty ding-dong; so, too, does the Harlequin with Afo Fasogbon. Fasogbon was a late call-up for Emmanuel Iyogun of Northampton Saints, which might explain why his shorts are on the smaller side. That said, there is probably no clothing manufacturer in existence who produce shorts for the size of Fasogbon's thighs.
Harrison ensures that England scrummage in combinations. Baxter and Joe Heyes scrummage with Jamie George, as the starting front row; Theo Dan teams up with Opoku-Fordjour and Bevan Rodd, the latter of whom has a ferocious tussle with Heyes at one scrum in particular; while Curtis Langdon is pitted with club-mate Trevor Davison and Fasogbon. This is deliberate – and planned.
'Scrummaging, ultimately, is cohesion and timing of movement together,' Harrison says. 'If you can get seven guys doing the same thing at the same time then you're probably going to have a good scrum; eight and you'll probably have a dominant scrum. How they get their binds, their timing, their feel. 'OK, he does this, I know he does that.' There's a lot of work on that. Training-wise, we predominantly scrummage in combinations that we play but it might be that I suddenly change the hooker. I weight reps to the combinations that I think will play.
'It's the same with the back five. For example, Chandler [Cunningham-South], who covers six, eight and both sides of the second row. We'd normally have George Martin as a right-hand side second row, Ollie Chessum as a right-hand side second row; if they aren't around then it's Maro [Itoje] who is on the right-hand side. So we've been developing who scrummages on the right-hand side with [Alex] Colesey. Because he and [Charlie] Ewelsy have always been left, left, left. We want them both to play so therefore they need to get used to the different arms and the different movements.
'The players don't know that. I don't say to them: 'You need to develop this.' But I give them reps in that position and with certain combinations so that they can start to pick it up implicitly.'
As the session continues, the most brutal is to come. Harrison wants to test his replacement front row to the max – Dan, Rodd and Opoku-Fordjour – so, for good measure, he tells Baxter and Heyes to go and act as auxiliary flankers alongside No 8 Tom Willis, pushing between flanker and lock. Ten versus eight; and the outnumbered front row, impressively, holds firm.
'If we're playing against a team which scrummages for penalties, and a heavy pack, then I'll go 10 versus eight and stick two extra No 8s on,' Harrison says. 'If we're scrummaging for penalties, then we'll have longer scrums.
'They'll do another three or four on a Thursday. Monday is set-ups; teaching the habits and principles I want. A front-row meeting, teaching pictures I want to see. Potentially, three versus three and five versus five. Tuesday is testing under fatigue; long scrums – test it, test it, test it. Thursday, we tweak it. Then we go into the Test again. It's teach, test, tweak; that's the framework I use. We might only get three scrums but every front-rower will know what the focus is for these scrums to get right.
'Is it hard? Yeah. Intense? Yeah. Brutal? Yeah. These guys do things that a normal human... imagine a back. They don't understand! It's something special that these guys put their bodies through. They do it on a Tuesday to be able to go and win on a Saturday and it's tough. Is it to the point of recklessness and stupidity? No. There's a thought-process behind it, but they will 100 per cent work hard.'
Earlier in the day, England had been put through their paces in the gym before splitting into more specific, non-contact work. Calvin Harris blared from the pitchside boombox as Borthwick and Cunningham-South used tennis balls to rehearse the catching of restarts.
After some breakdown work – with all coaches mucking in no matter their specialism – the two sides came together for game-scenario training – 15 on 15. As the fog cleared on the outskirts of La Plata, Borthwick sought selection clarity ahead of another monstrous Test against Argentina this Saturday in San Juan.
To replace the injured Henry Slade at outside centre, Borthwick has a trio of uncapped options: Oscar Beard, Luke Northmore and Max Ojomoh. All three impressed in training; the former throwing his shoulder about defensively like a boxer's fist, the latter harrying scrum-halves at rucks, and Northmore running the line of the day off the crisp passing of George Ford.
Among the replacements, Borthwick has another decision to make. Charlie Atkinson of Gloucester is the only other fly-half on tour but Slade was the preferred cover in last weekend's victory over the Pumas in La Plata, which allowed a six-two bench split. For Borthwick to continue with that replacement formation this weekend, scrum-half Ben Spencer would have to cover fly-half; should that occur, it would show the value that Borthwick places on a six-forward bench composition rather than an indictment of Atkinson's abilities. The Gloucester fly-half showed some incredibly silky touches in training on Tuesday.
As the drones buzzed overhead, relaying live training footage to lead analyst Joe Lewis sitting in front of his laptop on the sidelines, Joe El-Abd, England's defence coach, yelled 'press square! press square!' at his defensive charges. Near-gobbledegook to those on the outside – the juniors of the Club San Luis are also granted viewing access to parts of the session – but the words compelled England's defence to up the ante and El-Abd seemed pleased by the response.
Phil Morrow, England's newly-installed head of team performance, played a central role. Morrow spent over a decade with Saracens and co-captain George knows his influence. The hooker spoke of four-minute blocks: short, sharp, intense – and high quality. 'There is meticulous preparation,' George said, 'and the aim is to go above Test-match intensity.'
At the heart of the meticulousness are Ford and stand-in attack coach Lee Blackett. As England run through their attacking shape, Ford is disgruntled at some of the passing of his forward pack as he wraps around a pod of three. They are passing the ball in front of him, the gold standard, but it seems as though, for the fly-half to transfer the ball away swiftly, he wants it a little bit behind him, so he can fling it across his body in one movement without resetting his arms. Blackett also remarks that England are a little slow to the breakdown, before normal service is resumed; there is attacking alchemy between forwards and backs, and Tom Roebuck crosses for a sleek score.
'That is how we win this weekend,' barks Borthwick, triumphantly. It was England, and Ford, in full flow; at their fast, fluid best, ready for another supreme challenge – both in the the tight and the loose – on Saturday.