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Ben Youngs believes partnership with George Ford at Leicester will reap rewards for England
Ben Youngs believes his blossoming half-back partnership with George Ford at Leicester Tigers will reap rewards for England during the autumn Test series.
The performances of Young and Ford were among the stand-out features of Leicester’s first victory of their Premiership campaign.
Two tries by Youngs in the first quarter laid the foundation for Leicester’s victory while Ford’s gain-line game management and immaculate kicking – he landed a penalty and three conversions – spearheaded his side’s attempt to improve their tempo and intensity following the defeats by Bath and Northampton Saints.
Youngs says Ford’s decision to leave Bath last season and return to his former club is allowing the pair to develop a more instinctive and intuitive relationship than the time at opposing club players in England camp allowed for.
“We’re certainly working hard on the training ground to get that telepathic understanding of each other,” said Youngs. “(Saturday) was the best we’ve been this season. It’s nice when some of the bits we’ve been working on come off.
“There are still areas we need to tidy up but as a whole I’m loving playing with him. There’s no doubt he’s an unbelievable footballer and at times when it does click it’s fun to play.
“We obviously play different styles (with Leicester and England). The conversation we’ve had over the last two weeks is what can we do better?
“How can we help the team, as half-backs get the team in the game? We’re desperate to try and improve each other and really build that relationship for the club foremost and then international hopefully on the back of that.”
It is on the international stage, when there is so little time to react to changing game situations, that Youngs believes that a strong club partnership can reap dividends.
“You’d like to think that playing together every week you’re going to get a lot better understanding of each other,” Youngs added. “You’re going to be in situations in games where you both experience it at the same time, if that makes sense.
“If you play in a game where you’re on the back foot and the lineout’s not working, you’ve actually experienced that together already. And you’ve already come up with solutions of what you’ll do differently next time, rather than do it at international level and not have that mutual experience and perhaps come unstuck.
“When things go well it’s great, we’re able to learn from that. But equally, when it doesn’t work, we both understand ‘right, this is what we need to do; this is what I need for you and you need for me’.
“Any experience you have as a partnership together is going to benefit. Be it us as a partnership for Leicester or for England, it’s going to help us and help the team which is the most important thing because we want to be title contenders and to do that you’ve got to be able to adapt in games.
“George understands the game unbelievably well. He knows everyone’s role and what they should be doing so he’s able to coach whilst training. And he demands excellence because he knows where he wants to get to and where the team wants to get to.
“He’s on it every day. He knows when to unwind and have a laugh but when the time is right he’s absolutely on it. He’s a perfectionist in terms of what he wants and how he wants it to be.”
If the partnership is not yet fine-tuned, neither are Leicester as a whole. Their line-out problems continued on Saturday while at times their scrum creaked against a Gloucester side who seemed intent on self-destructing in the first half, conceding 11 penalties to one and 11 turnovers.
Yet despite having a platform to push on for the bonus point after Nick Malouf's try midway through the first-half, it was Gloucester who looked more potent after the interval, scoring a try by Josh Hohneck and adding a penalty by Billy Twelvetrees.