‘These guys do things a normal human don’t’

The training techniques that England hopes will help them defeat Argentina in the series and go to the next Rugby

World Cup as serious contenders have been made public.

During England’s primary closed session of the week, head coach Steve Borthwick made the historic choice to allow

access to all three visiting journalists.

I watched the hard training that England’s players go through to get ready for the games this weekend for two hours

at Club San Luis on the outskirts of La Plata.

Working diligently

It featured a series of four-minute drill blocks designed to wear down Red Rose players more than even a Test match

can, as well as live scrummaging against TEN forwards.

“Is it hard? Yeah. Intense? Yeah. Brutal? Yeah,” says Tom Harrison, England’s scrum guru.. “These guys do things a

normal human doesn’t. They do it on a Tuesday to be able to go and win on a Saturday and it’s tough.

“It’s something special that these guys put their bodies through. 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.”

Rugby and other sports have a long-standing custom of giving the media just enough information to appease the

team’s sponsors. It’s common to see pictures of athletes warming up, walking aimlessly, or gently kicking a ball to

each other.

This was a very different matter. We watched as the 34-man squad underwent the entire set of military-style training

exercises on a foggy morning about an hour’s drive from Buenos Aires.

Co-captain Jamie George then clarified, “The goal is to surpass Test match intensity.” “Steve frequently talks about

wanting to go above and beyond that and see where we can go with that in order to replicate the hardest Test

matches we’ve played.”

Thus, George and his teammates refined their talents for twenty minutes short of two hours, combining cohesion

with graft, technique with intensity.

England had already finished a gym session inside when we arrived and were just completing unit meetings on the

pitch. From there a whistle blew and they were off, embarking on a series of drills, performed with military precision.

Borthwick started by sharpening the reflexes of his second rows by throwing tennis balls to catch from point-blank

range. From there the players divided into groups for a variety of small-pitch drills.

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