Ellis Genge blasts critics as England wow crowds in York stronghold

For the second year in a row, Steve Borthwick’s men’s team staged an open training session at the LNER Community Stadium, giving young faces from rugby clubs and schools up and down the county, an up-close-and-personal taste of the elite level and their idols that play the game.

Marcus Smith and Fin Smith, the new darling duo, dazzled the crowd while the forwards went through their lineout drills in the late winter sunshine, the players in bobble hats betraying just how crisp it was up north.

Back-row forward Ben Earl told The Yorkshire Post last week that the training camp in York last year had a “galvanising effect” on the team and sent them into their final two assignments in good spirits after a sobering defeat to Scotland the previous Saturday.

Twelve months on, England arrived in York at the start of the week already in good spirits, having dodged a bullet against Scotland at Twickenham a fortnight on from a nail-biting win over France.

Indeed, England got back on the coach for the journey home invigorated by the greeting they got from 7,000-odd fans in Yorkshire, and looking handily placed to continue their quest for the title against Italy next Sunday, and Wales in Cardiff on the final weekend.

While York is proving the perfect place to rest and reset for England’s men, it also has a significant role to play in the women’s international game in 2025.

Three weeks on Sunday (March 23) a Red Roses team captained by Scarborough’s Zoe Aldcroft and including Keighley’s world player of the year Ellie Kildunne begin their quest for yet another Six Nations title at the Community Stadium.

And that venue will host six games of the Women’s Rugby World Cup at the end of August and beginning of September, when the likes of Canada, New Zealand, Australia and a United States team replete with global superstar Ilona Maher will entertain the crowds in North Yorkshire.

Back to the more immediate business of the men and Ellis Genge has hit back at England’s “out of touch” critics, claiming the negative response to a nailbiting Calcutta Cup victory “blew my mind”.

Borthwick’s side have won their last two Guinness Six Nations matches by the skin of their teeth at the Allianz Stadium, squeezing past France 26-25 before edging Scotland 16-15.

They conceded three tries and scored just one last weekend, drawing audible boos from the crowd and some tough words from the pundits.

Vice-captain Genge has been left bewildered by the reaction, suggesting his side were not getting their due from the stands or on the airwaves.

“It’s like you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. In the last 18 months, every time we’ve lost by a point, we’ve been slandered, and on the weekend we win by a point and it’s the same old story,” said the Bristol prop.

“It is difficult as a player to digest the fact that people were disappointed that we just won the Calcutta Cup back after five years. We won the game and people are still upset about it. It blew my mind to be honest.

“There is a feeling there, let’s not be naive. You can feel it that people were booing when we were playing. I love the fans, I think they’re brilliant, I go round clapping them after every game.

“But post-game the ex-players, recently retired and long retired, and people from years and years ago…I just can’t believe how out of touch they are. The spiel that I’m reading from people saying how off it we are. We won two games on the bounce and you’re upset about it, I don’t get it.

“It feels like we can’t win to be honest. That’s how I feel. We lost to Australia in the autumns (a 42-37 defeat last November) and everyone was like, ‘brilliant, brilliant, look how they move the ball’. But we lost, so who gives a ****?

“Do you want to be part of a team that wins every single game by one point? Or would you rather be part of a team that loses every single week, 40 points to 39? I know what type of team I want to be.”

France’s 73-24 win against Italy in Rome has set a difficult bar and raised expectations for that match, but Genge has warned not to expect the opening of the floodgates will be a mere formality.

“They beat Wales in Wales, they took a few scalps, so I don’t think they’re a team that people think is a guaranteed win anymore,” he said.