GEORGE Furbank missed a chance to get one over the All Blacks in July – now he has his eyes trained on the rematch at Twickenham next month.
The Northampton fullback pulled out of July’s second Test in Auckland with a back spasm and sat in the stands as England went down 24-17.
Furbank had been name-checked by the Kiwis after the first game in Dunedin for his attacking threat but was robbed of the opportunity to show them more by the injury.
The 27-year-old is a certainty for Steve Borthwick‘s squad for the autumn, which is announced on Wednesday, and is relishing another crack at the New Zealanders after his heartbreak in the summer.
He said: “I was gutted, Eden Park is a historic place. I was buzzing to play in New Zealand once but I wanted to play that second game. But this is another opportunity to have another shot at them at home.
“With 15 minutes to go in both games we had put ourselves in position to win both and ultimately came out on the wrong side through a few different elements. We look back with frustration but we also look back with a feeling we developed massively as a team on that tour.
“We have spoken briefly about where we want to improve. We are pretty clear on areas we need to improve to come out on the right side of those games that are tight.”
Furbank admitted he was shocked when Felix Jones handed in his notice to the RFU having just got to grips with the Irishman’s blitz defence but is not expecting his replacement, Joe El-Abd, to try and reinvent the defensive wheel.
“I don’t think Joe’s going to come in and change things massively,” Fur-bank added. “He’s going to look to put his mark on it but, ultimately, it’s about improving where we are at the moment with our D. We came on leaps and bounds with that aggressive blitz defence so we’re just going to look at keep improving that.
“I’d never played in a blitz D before so when it was first introduced it felt a little bit weird. It takes a couple of sessions to get into it. You’re probably worrying too much about backfield space. As a full-back you don’t really want the ball kicked in behind you but ultimately you rely on the lads inside you to put enough pressure on the kicker so he can’t get the kick away.
“Not many of the lads had experienced anything like it. There is only Exeter and possibly Sale who defend like that in the Premiership so it took a while to get used to it. It relies on the whole squad, there can’t just be a couple of guys who are good at it – it takes the whole squad to be invested in it for it to work.”
