Bath’s George Ford says Jonny Wilkinson’s formula is not for him

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/sep/07/george-ford-jonny-wilkinson-bath-sale

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George Ford may hope to fill the England boots of Jonny Wilkinson one day, but the 21-year-old Bath fly-half has decided that copying the great man is not the way to go about it. Whereas Wilkinson famously obsessed about training, kicking, kicking and kicking some more until he put together a session with which he could be satisfied, Ford has decided that in his case less is likely to be more.

The Wilkinson formula resulted in 91 England caps plus six Lions appearances, picking up Heineken Cup and French titles in 17 years with Newcastle and Toulon. However Ford, with just two walk-on caps from last season’s Six Nations, has decided to go for quality rather than quantity, perhaps limiting himself to a dozen kicks in training.

Along with Bath’s new skills coach, Darren Edwards, head coach at Newport Dragons until last February, Ford has decided to limit the amount of kicking he does, partly in the hope of stopping the drop-off in form the fly-half suffered at the end of last season. “I’ve tried to narrow it down, do quality sessions and really concentrate, make it more simple for myself,” said Ford after bagging 19 points with a flawless kicking display at Salford on Saturday.

“Darren is there every day. We had a chat in the summer and came up with a plan that we hope will work best for all the kickers at the club. For me it’s concentration levels, instead of going out there and kicking 40 goal kicks every day, I narrow it down to 10 or 12 and really concentrate. It probably saves your legs as well.”

Ford added: “It went really well today,” and he not only kicked a touchline conversion and two penalties from halfway, but set up both Bath tries, with a perfect cross-kick for Anthony Watson after only 42 seconds and then by opening up the Sale defence for Semesa Rokoduguni to wrest back the lead with eight minutes to go.

The move not only won the game but brought admiration from the Sale camp. Steve Diamond, their director of rugby, said: “There was probably a bit of inexperience there in the last 10 minutes. George Ford spotted it, created the overlap and he’s a top player. That was the difference really.”

With Stuart Lancaster and Andy Farrell in the stand, making notes before picking England’s elite squad for the autumn next month, and Danny Cipriani, another candidate for Test honours playing opposite, it was just the time for an eye-catching performance. While Cipriani went with England to New Zealand in the summer to refresh a Test career that had stalled almost six years earlier, Ford went under the knife to repair a damaged shoulder and admitted that staying at home had been tough. “Sitting there on a Saturday morning watching Test matches is tough,” he said. “But the bottom line is that I had to get it done to give myself the best chance of being fit for the start of this season.”

Ford is also delighted with Lancaster’s decision to delay selection of his elite squad for the autumn Tests from July to October, giving the Bath man and Cipriani, who was also flawless with the boot on Saturday, more time to state their case for joining the queue for the No10 shirt currently worn by Owen Farrell. “It’s a great change. Stuart is famous for picking players on form, so to play well in these next six games is huge.”

Sale McLean; Brady, Addison, Jennings, Cueto (T Arscott 49); Cipriani (Ford 73), Cusiter (Cliff 68); Lewis Roberts (De Marchi 51), Jones (Neild 51), Cobilas(Harrison 63, Cobilas 75) Hines (Mills 63), Paterson, Braid (capt; Lund 27), Seymour, Easter. Tries Jennings, Easter. Cons Cipriani 2. Pens Cipriani 2.

Bath L Arscott (Banahan 68); Rokoduguni, Joseph, Eastmond (Henson 74), Watson; Ford, Stringer (Cook 67); James (Auterac 61), Webber (Dunn 73), Wilson (Thomas ht), Hooper (capt), Day (Attwood 47), Fa’osiliva (Fearns ht), Mercer, Houston. Tries Watson, Rokoduguni, Cons Ford 2. Pens Ford 5. Sin-bin Day 26.

Attendance 6,800 Ref JP Doyle

Big season for

Nathan Hines Sale may have lost but the evidence from Saturday is that their director of rugby, Steve Diamond, has bought well in persuading Hines away from the Massif Central. The former Leinster and Perpignan lock may be 37 but he forms an imposing second row with Michael Paterson