Wattbikes, Springboks influence and tough camps: How England got fighting fit

A year ago last weekend, England suffered a 53-10 humbling at the hands of France; the nadir of Steve Borthwick’s maiden Six Nations as head coach. Throughout that tournament, Borthwick was forthright about one of his team’s chief shortcomings. England, he stressed, were simply not fit enough.

Twelve months later, the situation has improved markedly. On Tuesday at Pennyhill Park, as England prepared for another edition of Le Crunch, Aled Walters reflected proudly on a 23-22 victory over Ireland.

“That’s probably the most pleased I’ve been since I’ve been with England,” said the side’s lead conditioner, who joined the set-up prior to last summer’s World Cup pre-season.

“To see the amount of energy and how we were able to stay in anything; I felt that anything Ireland threw at us, we were able to cope with, or at least to come back from it quickly.”

Ben Earl, excellent at the World Cup and immense on Saturday, insisted that fitness has become a “fundamental” strength for England. In the recent past, in the halcyon days of Warren Gatland’s first tenure, Wales weaponised their conditioning – or at least their confidence in that conditioning.

England looked every bit as fit as Ireland, a side known for over-running and outworking opponents, and dug deep to stir a late comeback at Twickenham. Earl suggested that Borthwick’s charges are beginning to feel a sense of collective steel in the final 15 minutes of matches.

Here’s how Borthwick’s side became fitter than ever . . .

Club collaboration and a personal challenge

Walters’ impact on a dogged World Cup campaign was obvious. He is renowned for tailoring conditioning programmes to tactical plans and England’s wins were founded on industry.

Further developments, Walters believes, can be credited to a strong relationship with Premiership clubs. When the England squad arrived in Girona for their pre-Six Nations, camp, some players had been on an arduous treadmill that started spinning in September. Having missed the World Cup, for instance, Henry Slade had racked up 15 games for Exeter Chiefs in the league and Champions Cup.

Even so, Walters welcomed players that were ‘Test match ready’. George Furbank, part of the Northampton Saints crew that focused on strength training and size in the close season, is picked out as an individual who arrived in good shape despite not having represented England since 2022.

Girona featured hard graft. Those returning from last year’s Six Nations had additional motivation, too. “Maybe what Steve said at the end of the last campaign stung,” said Walters, who has emphasised the importance of recovery and wards against burn-out by monitoring work-loads in training closely. “I am that arsehole in the week saying: ‘There is only this much time on the grass, make sure we use it wisely.’”

Tactical alignment

Borthwick has always labelled Walters, one of his lieutenants at Leicester Tigers, as a rugby coach rather than a conditioner. This emphasises how England’s fitness work is closely tied to on-field strategy. “If the players realise they’re getting better at whatever system we use in defence or attack or in the kicking game and they’re able to do it more efficiently and more effectively, you get better buy-in,” Walters explained.

England have viewed the Six Nations as an eight-week block where the concept of ‘transfer’ – translating training to matches – has been pivotal. “We don’t waste time on anything that we don’t think is going to transfer to a game,” Walters said.

Cohesion has become a buzzword of the sport and it applies to coaching teams as well as positional combinations on the field. Walters is familiar to Borthwick, Richard Wigglesworth, Kevin Sinfield and Tom Harrison from their Leicester days. He is also a long-time colleague of Felix Jones as well. Walters and Jones worked together at Munster and South Africa; and this shared history with the Springboks has aided England’s implementation of blitz defence.

“I’m lucky that I know the system and that I’ve worked with Felix before, so I know what’s needed,” Walters said. “The biggest thing there is not their fitness but their attitude. How demanding training is actually gets the players fitter anyway.

“I think what you’ll see now and what you’ll continue to see is a team and a squad who’ll be able to deal with multi-phase [attack] and keep on screaming off the line. They’ll make errors, but their intensity, their intent to get off the line will remain and only get better.”

The next goal for England’s defence, a system still in its “infancy”, according to Walters, is to concede fewer offside penalties by retreating rapidly and adopting “good starting positions” as well as pressing aggressively. Overall, though, he feels happy with how players have adapted. “I don’t think it has been as big a demand as maybe they expected, because we have an athletic team,” he said.

Metrics and reference points

Walter predominantly works with England’s forwards alongside Tom Tombleson, another conditioning coach, assigned to the backs. During the fallow week in York, a Wattbike session generated some impressive figures. Ollie Chessum, labelled as “a bit of a weapon” on that piece of kit, won a challenge by returning an average of 520 watts for an initial three-minute time trial before his second three-minute interval averaged 471 watts.

“George Martin wasn’t happy about this,” Walters smiled, relishing the healthy competition between a pair of mates. “Historically, those two have always been pretty close.”

Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and Tommy Freeman registered “big numbers” during the Ireland game as far as “high-tempo running” on their GPS tracking. Feyi-Waboso hit his fastest sprinting speed – “comfortably over 10 metres per second” – of the entire campaign, be it training or games. Walters thoroughly enjoyed how Ellis Genge sprinted back to crowd out an opposition line-break in the seventh minute. “When you are seeing guys hit top speed in defence, you know they are really working for each other,” Walters said.

In the gym, Theo Dan and Ben Earl are “in a battle of the smaller forwards”. Both are bench-pressing in excess of 170kg. Alex Coles is labelled as another who is “developing all the time”. Walters will be vital when any more dynamic youngsters, such as Chandler Cunnningham-South, are integrated. “I used to use the analogy that it is easier to chip away at an iceberg than put layers on an ice cube,” Walters said. “Having big physical strong forwards makes life easier but we are not lacking for size and athleticism, definitely not.”

Their past with South Africa has given Walters and Jones an awareness of how world-class players operate. Comparisons can be useful. Years ago, Walters told Borthwick that the “athletically gifted” George Martin reminded him of Pieter-Steph du Toit. That was before Martin put on extra weight.

This works both ways as well. Just as Walters coos about the footwork of Earl, and how Caelan Doris was beaten by an explosive side-step on Saturday, the England players recognise how these ex-Springboks coaches can make them better. Walters believes that, as a group, England appreciate straight talking in the same way that South Africa do.

“When it comes to the tackle, it is pretty black and white; it is either good enough or it is not and no one is outside the realms of criticism there,” Walters said. “[England players] seem to love that because, who wouldn’t want to be dominant in an area, who wouldn’t want to be the world’s best team in an area of the game that has such a bearing on results?”

Walters is speaking about defence here, yet fitness will be the foundation for England. And that is certainly looking sturdier than it did last season’s Six Nations.