It must be no bad thing when a former club colleague, mentor and a player upon whom you have basically modelled yourself suddenly becomes the England forwards coach. But George Kruis is not expecting any favours from Steve Borthwick, and the truth is that he does not really require any, so good is Kruis’ form at the moment for Saracens.
“He was a player at Saracens, now he is a coach at England,” says Kruis of Borthwick, who was at Allianz Park on Saturday to witness a command performance from the Saracens’ pack. “That is very much the relationship. He was a mentor for me, definitely. You play for five or six years alongside a player like that and you are going to learn a few things off him, but he is very much a coach now and that is the way it is. I’m sure I will have a chat with him over the next couple of weeks, but I would like to think that if I do get selected it will be off my back and because of the hard work we at Saracens put in and I put in.”
Kruis was brilliant against Leicester
Kruis, whose only two appearances at last year’s Rugby World Cup were off the bench, surely will get selected now, with his director of rugby, Mark McCall, saying that he is an “absolute dead cert” to start against Scotland on February 6 and that he is “playing the best rugby he has ever played.”
Kruis was flattered by the praise. “That’s nice of him. That’s the first nice thing he’s said,” he joked. “Look, I am happy with how I’m playing but it makes it so much easier when in the pack you have got seven or eight English lads doing the same. It will be an interesting one for selection come the Six Nations. Fingers crossed we have got some of the boys in there.”
You can see that Kruis is now a genuine leader in a Saracens pack that appears to be improving week by week into a monstrously powerful group that forced Leicester to concede a record three penalty tries here. “The confidence of going away with England to become an international means he has grown so much,” said McCall. “Not only does he call the lineouts brilliantly and he is a real student of the lineout, he is also a magnificent athlete around the field.”
Borthwick has been spotted watching the Saracens
It was at the set-piece that all of Saracens’ forwards shone in putting their side six points clear at the top of the table, with two of the penalty tries coming from scrummages- where Leicester’s Dan Cole had a calamitous cameo role that ended in a yellow card and some serious questions about his suitability for an England place- and one from a first-half driving lineout.
McCall called his set-piece “brilliant”, while his counterpart Richard Cockerill said his was “sub-standard”, although it would have been interesting to have heard what he said in private.
Cockerill, who selected an under-strength side here, had no complaints at all about any of the decisions, and even had time to have a laugh when asked for the umpteenth time this season about Manu Tuilagi returning from injury.
Dan Cole endured a calamitous cameo role
“He's doing all right,” he said. “I would have liked him today - playing tight-head! Maybe that'll be a conversion for him - he's starting next week at tighthead. Seriously, he’s doing well. He’s in full training and we’re building his loads up. Hopefully sooner rather than later he’ll be out in the field.”
Leicester have their always-acrimonious east Midlands derby against Northampton next Saturday and Cockerill admitted that it will be a tough week ahead.
“It won't be a very comfortable week for the players or coaches,” he said. “That wasn’t good enough. We now have to show some character. We have historically shown very good character in times of adversity and I’m sure we’ll see that reaction. We better had.”
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