Six Nations - Ashton: New discipline helping England
Chris Ashton believes life on the straight and narrow is already paying dividends for England as they prepare to tackle Italy at the Stadio Olimpico.
England opened their RBS 6 Nations title defence with a committed and, crucially, a well-disciplined 13-6 victory over Scotland last weekend. Despite making more tackles than ever before in a Test match - 238 by their own count - England conceded just nine penalties at Murrayfield.
It was a far cry from some of the dark disciplinary days under Martin Johnson, when England were often guilty of haemorrhaging penalties and points, and Ashton said: "It's a mind-set in the team now, with people realising the impact it can have on a game if we keep giving away penalties. It is massive for us."
He added: "At the World Cup it cost us a lot and in the end it is what got us knocked out, basically. It is something we have focused on a lot.
"Sometimes when you are involved with the team, you can't see that [behaviour off the pitch could influence performance on it]. Sometimes it takes someone like Stu [Lancaster] to come in from the outside and realise that."
England made mistakes in defence last week, allowing Scotland to break their line 14 times, but their ability to scramble and defend the try-line was impressive. It epitomised the message of pride, heart and discipline that Lancaster has been trying to get though to his men - and won England the game.
Lancaster said: "We talked about it again this morning with the players - 'What does pride in the shirt and professionalism look like? What does commitment look like?'
"These are the types of things that the players talked about. We want the players to take ownership of the on-field discipline and off-field discipline through the leadership group and you can begin to see that happening.
"If we had been ill-disciplined at the weekend, we probably would have conceded four or five penalties in kickable range, which ultimately would have led to Scotland winning the game.
"We want to see a repeat of that discipline against Italy this weekend. We don't want to give cheap penalties away by going offside or from early scrum engagements."
Comment 26 - 45 of 45
Disagree John@19, the rugby league boys in Union started with the Ozzies. ok maybe England in the UK, but when the game went professional, the league boys knew they could be famous overnight by crossing to England. but unfortunatley coaches started coming as well , now we have what we have, a style thats unbelievably boring. but its to late to turn back , so lets get on with it. infact I suppose its that league defense that stopped Scotland winning the game against England.
Well Im off down the pub to watch the match. Will be wearing my England shirt with pride and drinking some good English ales whilst watching the match. I wonder what the sheep shagging idiot TERRY will be doing?? This idiot TERRY reminds me of another TROLL on the F1 forum called Turdonthearseofhumanity well that is what I call him. Spends all day thumbing his self up and thumbing everyone else down. By the way TERRY, not all Austrailians are from English stock. Many Austrailians are from Scots, Welsh and Irish stock. I think they will take offence to your stupid comment.
Well i fancy three home wins this weekend.Sorry England but Italy in there own back yard its a big ask for England but this is test rugby and anything can happen
Adrian 39. Todays game is a tough call, but a wounded Italy on their home patch can hurt any of the 6 nations teams. If they play to their full potential and use the bench wisely italy in my mind will scrape it. This year I think France, Wales, and Ireland will have too much for England. But i hope im proved wrong
If England keep there discipline they win by 10-15 points, because Italy like Scotland can't score tries, England will be better attacking this week, last week was all about the win, i expect England to be much better with ball in hand and not kick so much, we showed how to play against the Itailians last year at Twickenham, play with pace and run this Italian pack around they run out of steam, and then we can look forward to beating the Welsh at Twickenham in 2 weeks time.
Thank you, Huw, for restoring my faith in the type of welsh fan who loves rugby rather than hating England. I concur with your comments and feel that barring ill fortune this side could be very good indeed in two or three years time. Until then we english will just have to accept that victories will be hard to achieve and remember what a low patch the Clive Woodward's side went through for a couple of years as they were coming together.
Do those others who insist on knocking England (even last year when they WON the competition) feel that we should stop playing the game? Especially since having a larger population seems to be cheating.
I apologise, I was just trying to get the nose of TERRY the racist Welsh Nazi. I suppose where there's no sense their is no feeling.
Huw-post 35-i agree with most of your points, i think 3rd or 4th is about where we will be.
Really cant call it today, would be over the moon with a second away win so lets hope!
Cant see Scotland beating Wales, 20 points at least in it with France putting 35 past Ireland (sorry lads).
i just thank god this prick ashton is too ugly to breed with another human , can you imagine the school photos for f==k sake take pity.
Hey terry comment 23 grow up whats wrong with you calm down !!your showing signs of mental illness ,this is supposed to be a forum on rugby tactics etc .Make an appointment to see your doctor who will refer you to a specialist take care hope you get better soon
When interviewed on TV the Welsh players seem like normal, intelligent human beings, so I wonder how it is that all the Welsh fans who post messages are semi-literate racist morons!
As a welsh fan reading this article, its clear that England do look more disciplined, and yes their scramble defense did them well last week, the problem is the other statistic, they let a fairly average Scottish side break their line 14 times. Do that against Italy, and you can be assured that they will concede tries and lots of them.
This is a fundamental problem for England and cannot be rectified in a week, its going to take months for the team to gel fully and play like a complete unit. The biggest problem however with english rugby is their fans. These people expect results straight away, and in reality it doesn't work like that. If the english fans want to show true support for their team, give them time to work together and build as a squad, yes you are not going to get the wins you want right away, but in time they will get back to where they should be at the top end of world rugby. Just look at the welsh team, they went through a period of time when rebuilding their squad, and everyone laughed at how poor their performances were. No one is laughing at them now. They have built a squad of players who are very impressive, and in my opinion are currently the best team in the northern hemisphere. England you will get better, and you will get the results in time, and come the next world cup, I think most teams will fear playing you. But for now, I can only see a 4th place finish for england this year, and thats not down to bad play or silly mistakes, its because they are a new bunch playing together who need time to develop into a team
discipline is fine & dandy ........... but we need to put more than 2 passes together this week boys!
This is a very tough match'; Italy at home wounded, fans suffering austerity. Still it's not as daunting as facing France in the Ukraine in your first tournament match. English male sport has it tough; its clear lager lout behaviour is over. Player could drink French wine with a meal and take it some art galleries.
cymro, Is that the best insults you can come up with? calling twickenham a 'dump' and calling the England players 'dwarf throwers'? okay.
Like the football, England players will now realise; they are the management.
If they were playing in that dump called Twickers, just outside hooray henry land, then I wouldn't fancy the Italians' chances. But on home ground, with the dwarf throwers suffering from jetlag...
Guys and Girls, all teams talk themselfs up and why? Because if the dont believe they can beat everyone put in front on them they are just a bunch of lossers. So England got a lucky win against the Scots so what. The main thing is they played as a unit and did not allow the Scots to cross the line to score a try. Now against the Italians they need to show more discipilne and let the backs run and hopefully we have a good game.
why are there so many idiots on these comment sections, it is a sad state of affairs when you cant come to a rugby forum to actually talk about the intricacies of rugby without seeing such provocative bile.
I think it was inspired more when they found neanderthals in Cardiff, still walking around. You lot used to be the English but ran for the hills when those nasty men invaded!
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