Yeah.

I think, um, and I, I, I'd say this to everyone, like, having Fordey, um, is honestly invaluable for that, for that dynamic because, you know, he, he'd probably be the most experienced, um, has, has achieved more, more than anyone in the England squad at the minute.

And, um, you know, the second that I was lucky enough to be picked ahead of him for one of the games, he was, like, as good as example as you could have possibly set to, to the rest of the squad, not, not just myself and Marcus.

Like, straight over congratulating us.

He was like, "Look, I, I'm gonna have a look at the scrum clips, bring, bring you some feedback.

This is, this is what I think we should do this week." Trained, trained better than anyone that week, and I think when someone who's achieved that much, um, and is, is as much of a great as he is, is acting like that, then, you know, how, how could I possibly have an ego when I wasn't picked? You know what I mean? That, that's kind of my, my take on it.

So, um, yeah, when, when he set that precedent to us, that was just the way we acted, and everyone's followed that, and it's made it been really easy for us to just all chip in and try and get the best out of the team rather than almost, um, be after each other.

Um, the other thing as well I, I sort of, um, was gonna ask is do you lead, or do you run the team with England the same as you do as Northampton, or do you have a different approach?

Do you look at it differently now because with a few months context, do you think there's more you wanted to do, or the next time you meet up, there's a lot more in you? Like w- how do you feel about the whole England thing now?

Yeah, I, I'd probably say my, my assessment stands on it, um, in terms of being a seven.

Like I think, I think we, we played some good stuff at times, which is, which is promising.

I just think we need to, um, just be so much more consistent.

Like it, it, it's, it's, it's funny to me when, when, when people talk about what 2025 was like and the winning run you, we went on and stuff like that, and then you know, how tense and pivotal those games felt in the summer, only, you know, six months on.

But, um, that's the nature of it, and I think if you let your stand- standards slip even a couple of percent, um, and test rugby teams will just swallow you up, and that's what happened to us a tiny bit, and I'm actually just proud of the way we sort of rallied back together and found our way.

But we need to, we need to build on that, and I...

But do, is there anything you take from that that you can bring into this season that almost puts you in a better position to be able to back up the title and defend your title?

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Nature of test rugby I suppose, yeah

It means you've got a more vibrant scene, I think.

Absolutely, yeah.

It's just great being able to kind of go explore different sounds.

Like, you know, actually, just back to Whelan, you know, they do the whole Ones to Watch series.

All right.

And so that's like a night of, like, I'm going to say maybe across three days, 60, 50 acts or so.

Yeah.

I'll let you take this, I

Just how is he doing? Is he easier?

Yeah, I'm not sure.

Um, he's not drank for a year and a half, and he just had his first beer there in the changing room.

So, um, yeah, he was pretty chuffed about that.

But, um, yeah, obviously devastated for Archie.

It was, uh, wasn't probably the fairytale ending he had, he had thought, had in mind from this season.

He's had a, he's had a brilliant, brilliant, uh, season, hasn't he? So, um, yeah, fingers crossed he's all right.

For obviously been that period now.

And how's your week been? Because you've obviously gone from Rome to Verona to Paris.

Yeah, it's been a...

How do I sum this week up? It's been a...

It's been a week where I think we've learned a lot, a week where a lot of growth has hopefully happened.

I think, you know, for a young guy that's not had too much adversity in an England shirt so far, I think it's been an interesting week for me to handle and sort of had the excitement of being back in the team for a first time in a little while and then obviously a really disappointing result over in Rome and trying to then park the emotions and um you know it's a weird way to describe it it's almost like grief when you lose a game like that like you you really hurt from it and uh trying to park those emotions and then get yourself into position to be really excited for a massive game coming up this weekend has been a good one for the group actually and i think we will have grown a lot from it and taken a lot and learned a lot about ourselves so it's been a good week and Some nice weather in Verona and now we're in a great city in Paris for a big fixture.

So, yeah, pretty exciting week.

tight and

under pressure in an England shirt? I wouldn't say so, no.