Maro Itoje: There is no crack in my England team
England captain Maro Itoje denied that there are cracks in the leadership group as he laughed off his spat with fly-half Fin Smith in the 23-18 defeat by Italy.
Камеры зафиксировали Itoje, кричащего на Smith в начале второй половины на стадионе Olimpico, когда Англия лидировала со счетом 12-10. После того, как они выиграли пенальти, произошел немедленный разговор среди лидеров Англии. Вице-капитан Эллис Гэнж, который только что столкнулся с линией, жестом указал на возможность взять мяч, прежде чем Itoje это предотвратил, а Джейми Джордж, другой вице-капитан, указал, что хочет взять три очка.
Затем Smith подходит к Itoje, чтобы обсудить возможность использования линии. На видео, опубликованном BBC’s Rugby Special, слышно, как Itoje кричит: “Не спорьте со мной. Возьмите три.”
However, Itoje maintains the incident was overblown and not indicative of deeper-rooted problems with England falling to a third successive defeat. “There’s no crack,” Itoje said. “There’s no crack between us. He’s a good guy and I get on with him very well and I think when you have good relationships with people you’re able to have those sorts of conversations and are able to move on from it pretty quickly. There was no residue from that. Naturally, I guess because of the loss, it was made into a bigger thing than it actually was.”
‘Fin is my guy’
Itoje argues that the incident is actually proof of a healthy team environment, where the team’s decision-makers have the confidence to air their opinions. “I actually think it is a good thing that people in the team feel they can express a view and in sport, if anything, that’s the most kosher of fallouts that the world has ever seen,” Itoje said. “We have had far more blunt conversations between ourselves and other team-mates. There’s no real biggie. After that interaction, we even laughed about it a little bit on the pitch as well.
“I didn’t really lose it. You don’t often see me with a mic, I am not always mic’d up, but maybe I am portraying a false image. Fin is my guy. As always when it comes to things, the way I try to do things is I like to hear what my key decision-makers think of what is going on and whoever plays 10 will obviously have an important role in that. I initially asked what we thought we should do and I guess he expressed a view, I expressed a view and I just wanted to quickly move on to the next thing. I guess we were just discussing all the various options and they were all the various options and I guess ultimately my job is to have the final say.”
England must avoid losing at Stade de France on Saturday night to prevent their first four-defeat Six Nations campaign. The stakes are higher still for France, who can win the title with a bonus-point victory or by bettering Ireland and Scotland’s result in Dublin.