Video Footage Emerges From England’s Scrummaging Session With Georgia
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Battle of the packs.
Earlier this week Eddie Jones said he will pit his England forwards against ‘the biggest, ugliest, strongest scrum pack in the world,’ and now the footage from that session against Georgia has emerged.
The training session pitted the English pack against the Georgian pack (who are one of the top scrummaging units in world rugby), with Wayne Barnes acting as referee.
“We want to have the best scrum in the world and they are the biggest, ugliest, strongest scrum pack in the world, so it’s fantastic,” Jones said earlier in the week.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to get some quality scrum practice in. It will still be practice but they will do the same number of scrums they do in a game.”
In the footage, Georgia appear to get the better of the exchanges to begin with. But Mako Vunipola and Dan Coles prove they are well able to hold their own, perhaps winning the latter part.
Speaking to BBC 5 Live after the session, Jones says it was probably a draw.
“They won the early part and maybe we won the latter part, so if it was a boxing match it would be a draw.
“The Georgians scrum in a quite unique way, and they are able to transfer pressure without moving their feet, so our front-rowers will have learned a lot today. It was a great learning experience for us.”