Saints skipper Hartley steels England for Georgia scrummaging sessions

England will scrummage against Georgia this week with Saints hooker Dylan Hartley outlining the consequences if they fail to view the sessions as anything other than the equivalent of a Test match.
By The Newsroom
Published 12th Feb 2018, 00:48 BST
Updated 12th Feb 2018, 07:13 BST
Dylan Hartley led England to victory against Wales on Saturday (picture: Kirsty Edmonds)Dylan Hartley led England to victory against Wales on Saturday (picture: Kirsty Edmonds)
Dylan Hartley led England to victory against Wales on Saturday (picture: Kirsty Edmonds)

The Georgians will spend the Tuesday and Wednesday of the first fallow week of the NatWest 6 Nations providing Eddie Jones' pack with an examination of their set-piece expertise.A similar event was staged against Wales in Bristol before the 2017 autumn series and it was deemed a success, leading to Jones setting up a similar scenario against one of the game's most accomplished scrummaging nations."Every scrum has to be intense otherwise you get folded up like a travel map stuffed in your back pocket," said Hartley, who started alongside club-mate Courtney Lawes in England's 12-6 win against Wales at Twickenham on Saturday."I'm looking forward to it. It will be a really useful tool and I'm sure they will take something from it as well."We're always looking to improve our scrum. It has been going well for us.

"They are good players who play Top 14, good operators."You think that by mixing it up and training against someone different we will find something out about ourselves and we will learn."If I scrum against Jamie George, Alec Hepburn and Harry Williams they know what we are trying to do, we know what they are trying to do and we end up negating each other."

Related topics:EnglandCourtney LawesEddie JonesWalesBristol