Stopping Ireland no motivation for ‘critical’ England after France loss continues their miserable Six Nations run

England put in a second successive poor performance in a 22-16 defeat to France that handed Ireland a third Six Nations title in five years

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England’s Owen Farrell looks dejected as France celebrate victory after the match. Photo: Reuters

Published: 12:03pm, 11 Mar 2018Updated: 12:06pm, 11 Mar 2018

England hooker Jamie George said his team will be motivated to fix their own problems rather than stop Ireland winning the grand slam next weekend.

England put in a second successive poor performance in a 22-16 defeat to France on Saturday that handed Ireland a third Six Nations title in five years.

And should Joe Schmidt’s side win at Twickenham next weekend, they would complete only their second grand slam in the Six Nations era and third overall.

But George said last year’s champions are more concerned with sorting out their own deficiencies than putting a blot on Ireland’s copybook.

“I don’t think it will be about Ireland, we’ve got to put some things right and have a good hard look at ourselves in terms of where we’re at and what learnings we can take from the last two weeks,” said George, whose side also lost 25-13 to Scotland in their previous game.

“That’s going to be our motivation, and making sure we put on the right performance and learn from the things that we’ve learnt the last couple of weeks and fix the problems that we have.