Dubai: England fullback Mike Brown says lessons learnt from a poor Six Nations will stand them in good stead for next year’s Rugby World Cup.
The Red Roses recorded their worst ever Six Nations finish of fifth with defeats to Scotland, France and Ireland earlier this month, putting their Webb Ellis hopes in doubt.
“It’s obviously disappointing because you want to win every game,” said Brown at Dubai College on Thursday, where he’s overseeing a three-day kid’s rugby camp in association with Kooh Sports.
“Saying that, it’s better to lose and learn a lot of lessons now, than it is next year so close to the World Cup, which is our main target.
“It’s good to pick up a couple of learning points in terms of discipline and our breakdown from this Six Nations, which will stand us in really good stead for that World Cup.”
Asked where things went wrong for England, the Harlequins star replied: “Discipline and breakdown are the two main things.
“We gave away key penalties in certain areas and gave teams easy outs when putting them under pressure.
“We need to be able to play the referees better than what we did and then with the breakdown, and how referees are refereeing that breakdown, it’s about reacting to that quicker and just dealing with it in general.
“The breakdown has very much changed in terms of how it’s being refereed this year, we know all the changes and it’s good to learn that now.
“It’s only a blow if you dwell on it and don’t learn from the mistakes,” he added. “We will definitely learn from those mistakes and I think a bit of disappointment is always good to drive you and keep you working harder.
“You learn a lot more from losing sometimes. It’s great to win and as players we are very narrow minded but Eddie (Jones) knows the grand plan. Nothing will change in his head and it’s just about learning from mistakes getting a few players back who were rested or returning from injury, and we’ll go again.”
Since Jones took over after the last World Cup in 2015, England went on a world record equalling run of 18 games unbeaten before defeat to Ireland, who denied them the Grand Slam in last year’s Six Nations. They then won six in a row before these most recent three defeats.
“We’ve still only lost four in 28 and that’s not a bad record. If you look at the England team that won the World Cup (in 2003) and see how many they lost along the way, and at crucial points in their journey, that stood them in good stead in their ultimate goal, and it will do the same for us.”
So, can England still win the World Cup? “Yes, of course. Looking at the talent we’ve got in the squad and the guys that have come in when there’s been injuries, the rugby we’ve been playing, the journey we’re on and the strides we’ve been making in certain areas, if we learn from these lessons, which we will do, we’ll be even better next year, so definitely.
“New Zealand are No. 1 in the world, so they’ll be favourites. I said before how close the Six Nations was going to be and it proved so. On the last day from second to fifth any of those sides could have been in any position and we obviously ended up on the wrong side of it. It’s very close in northern hemisphere rugby and that’s great. We’ll just focus on ourselves and keep working hard to achieve our goal.”
Brown was dropped and started from the bench in the last two games of the Six Nations but didn’t seem too concerned.
“Eddie is a looking at the World Cup squad and you’re not going to be able to play every game in a tournament like that. So it was good to show I can do things off the bench and have a different role within the squad, like helping to prepare the starters and having an impact off the bench, which I think I did in those two games.
“It’s not about kicking stones and getting upset but getting on with it. Again it drives you, that slight disappointment of not starting, to get better as a player. I impacted as much as I could to get that win at the end but it just wasn’t to be.”
