England will sharpen up defence – Slade

By Imogen Ainsworth

Henry Slade says that the England team vow to improve their defence in the future, starting against Italy on Sunday following last week’s loss to Scotland.

“Scotland scored some good tries last week; but, we were equally disappointed with how we defended them. It’s tough with a whole new defensive structure coming in and only having a limited time to start. We’ll only be better for it moving forwards,” the newly re-selected centre said.

“We’ve addressed a few things this week technically and, with how we aspire to be as a defence, we’re all the better for it.  Every week we’re getting better, every training session we feel like we’re getting better and more in sync with each other. I’m hoping we’ll get a better performance this week,” he added.

With Slade coming back into the selection mix after injury, Steve Borthwick has opted to hand Owen Farrell the 10 shirt to make room for Slade in the centres, with Marcus Smith taking a seat on the bench.

This is will be the first time in two years that Farrell will start at 10 for England, despite it being his primary position on the club scene for Saracens.

Borthwick said: “I’ve decided to change that combination for this week. As ever, when I pick a team, I look at the plan we want to play against a specific opposition and, certainly, I think that’s what I have explained to the players, that’s the way the team will be picked.”

“That’s the decision I’ve made for the way we want to play this week.

“I think it’s fantastic to welcome Henry Slade back. I think he’s a player who’s played very well for his club, has great attributes in the centre — a fantastic left foot which gives us another aspect, another strength to the team,” he added.

Making his test debut in 2015, Slade has played outside both Farrell and Smith as fly-halves.

While there are slight differences in styles between the two when playing at 10, both have the solid foundations required to perform at the international level.

“Obviously there’s less of the hopping around and jumping around! In terms of the rest of it, not masses,” he said while comparing Smith to this weekend’s starting 10.

“They are both vocal, they know what they want and how they want to attack. Obviously we have an idea of how we want to attack as a team and they are both committed to buying into that, so there is no real difference. It’s just little bits of, I suppose, timing – Marcus likes to be at the line, have a bit of a skip and a step and you probably have to hold your timing a little bit more.

“Two slightly different approaches to the attack but both have got very good qualities, both good kickers, good distributors, talkers, so in terms of that there is not too much difference.”

Slade has played in around 11 different centre partnerships for England, the first being with Sam Burgess during his brief spell playing rugby union.

“I think that centre is one of the positions where there’s not really a set of things you need to have,” Slade said while reflecting.

“There are so many different types of centres. If you look at myself, Ollie [Lawrence], Manu [Tuilagi], those boys, we’ve all got different attributes. I think that’s the best thing about centre really because there are two of you you can just swap around wherever you want.

“The only time really that the numbers count is where you are defensively; but, even then you could be wearing 12 and defending at 13 it doesn’t matter. The beauty of it is we can chop and change wherever we’re needed, whatever best suits the team at that point in time. That’s what we’ve been practising in the last few weeks and that’s what’s been feeling pretty good in training,” the 52 times internationally capped centre said positively.

Bath’s Ollie Lawrence has been elevated from his position in the replacements last week and has been selected to play at 12 against the Azzurri, who put in a strong performance against France in round one.

Slade believes he and his fellow West Country centre will provide England with a strong partnership in the middle.

He said:“I think it’s similar to how myself and Manu play together. He’s a very similar player in terms of being a powerful guy who’ll get you over the gain line.

“I’m less powerful, but our strengths complement one another. We want to use him, and not use him, to manipulate the defence and give ourselves space and time to get the ball to the edges. He’s been good to play with and I’ve got a good relationship with him off the pitch, which always helps. He brings a lot of qualities with his power and his strength. Hopefully he can get us some front-foot ball,” he added optimistically.