England are coming to the end of a gruelling season that began more than a year ago, when most of the current squad were preparing for last autumn’s World Cup.
Just seven days after a bloody confrontation with the All Blacks in Dunedin, the players make one final, herculean effort.
Here, captain JAMIE GEORGE explains to Mail Sport’s Chris Foy how he and his team-mates are recovering, repairing and preparing for another gruelling test, a week after the last…
Jamie George has revealed his daily diary at the England rugby camp in New Zealand
They will make a final Herculean effort against the All Blacks to complete their season
LAST SATURDAY
‘After the game, the medics come to each player and ask, “Is there anything to report?” If it’s anything from a bruised toe to a twisted ankle, you report it. They’ll keep checking all week and you’ll get constant treatment.
“There are always a few knocks and you recover in some way. If you have a dead leg or bleeding, you put ice on that area. Otherwise rehydration is key. When you play a Test match, you weigh yourself and weigh yourself to see how much water you’ve lost. Generally it’s between one and three kilos. Three kilos would be a lot. In Japan it was a lot – more than in New Zealand, where I think for me it was about one and a half (kilos lost).
‘You rehydrate with water, salts and electrolytes, and you jump in an ice bath if there’s one. There was one at the stadium last weekend, which was great. Then the message from Aled (Walters, head of strength and conditioning) was that we can have a beer next weekend. So you’ve got to keep your alcohol intake pretty low and try to get an early night.
‘The best way to recover is to sleep and the boys are now wearing Whoop bands and other devices that track sleep patterns. Steve (Borthwick) has been talking this week about trying to set sleep records because that’s the most important thing, so it’s about who can sleep the longest. Theo Dan is a ridiculous sleeper and a lot of the young lads can sleep for hours.
“But often after a difficult Saturday night you have to catch up on sleep. Your mind is ticking. I fell asleep at 3 or 4 in the morning and woke up at 8 in the morning, which is not enough.”
Players can lose between one and three kilos of water after playing tough test matches
Whoop bands (pictured) are used to track sleep patterns and help the team recover
SUNDAY
“That was a travel day for us, which makes it quite tricky. We’ve been recovering in the morning before we leave Dunedin. We’re trying to get in a pool or an ice bath and get some treatment from the physio department. The main thing for us was to make sure we all wore our recovery tights on the flight and for most of the day.
‘Then we tried to recover more when we got to the hotel here in Auckland. By recover I mean mainly ice baths and using the sauna. Saunas are very popular in rugby at the moment and there’s a great one here at the hotel. We all got in it, and then we got in the ice, so it’s all about mixing the hot and the cold. You probably do a 15-minute period in an ice bath; three to five minutes in, out and back in.
“There will be a performance meeting and we all give feedback, then our head of medical reports to our head of performance, who talks to Steve. They have a good understanding of what we need. They also check the GPS data from our game at the weekend.
“That last game would definitely take a lot out of us, both emotionally and physically. There’s an emotional peak that comes with playing a game like that, a setback afterwards and making yourself feel pretty bad for a few days.”
The day after the match, players usually use saunas to further recover
To mix the heat and cold, players also jump into ice baths for 15 minutes several times
MONDAY
“It was a walk for us this week. We weren’t on the pitch, but we went through a lot of details. We did some gym work, but the priority was to make sure we were feeling good for Tuesday.
“The big thing now is physical therapy and soft tissue (massage), so you would get that every day. We will see a physical therapist and a soft tissue therapist at least once a day.
‘After a game like last weekend, you don’t feel quite yourself early in the week. Your legs still feel heavy and you have a lot of bumps and bruises. So we’re reducing the time we’re on the grass, but that means we have to maximise the opportunity when we’re on the grass. I think we’ve done a good job of that.’
Monday will be a walk for the rest of the week, with legs still heavy from the last race
TUESDAY
“We were in the gym and it was high intensity, but probably a lot shorter than we’re used to. That’s based on the game load from the week before and the fact that it’s the last week of the season. It’s not often that you get to bring it back that far. You still have to make sure that that intensity spike is pretty high.
‘Tuesday is the big training day in our week. We don’t do double (session) days here, but we might do things in units after the session and the gym beforehand, leading into a walk-through and then onto the pitch. All in all, it’s probably three in the morning. There were a lot of sore bodies and we were all still feeling it a bit after last weekend’s game.
‘The emphasis is on trying to get a good night’s sleep on Tuesday night. We go out to dinner, sometimes in small groups of forwards or backs, sometimes as a big group. It’s about getting out of the hotel, enjoying each other’s company, and then generally getting back quite early and sleeping in bed as long as possible.’
Tuesday is the biggest training day of the week and the players are tasked with getting a good night’s sleep
WEDNESDAY
“This is a big recovery day for us. The physios are available to us and we try to make sure we’re not on our feet for too long or exploring too much. Again, it’s using the sauna, the ice bath, soft tissue therapy, physio. Those are all the big priorities that day, making sure you’re ready for it on Thursday when we go back to training.”
THURSDAY
‘It’s a similar training day to a Tuesday, but the phases we train for aren’t as long. On a Tuesday you can throw the ball in, but they play it out until there’s an end point – someone gets tackled in touch or scores a try or whatever. But on Thursday they shorten it to three or four phases, so it’s about reducing the running load as it’s later in the week.
‘At this stage of the week all the recovery has really helped. I definitely felt a lot better in training than I did on Tuesday.’
On Thursday the sessions will be shortened and by then the recovery should have started
FRIDAY
“We’ve changed how we do things the day before a Test. Under Eddie (Jones) the captain’s run into the stadium was a training session and you ran through your first three plays, with your boots on. But now it’s a walk-and-talk exercise.
‘I’ve never been a big fan of them (pre-match training sessions), we never did them at Sarries and neither did Steve, so it’s just a case of walking and talking, the kickers shooting at goal, me doing some (lineout) throwing, individual skills – it’s completely up to you what you want to do.
“We have meetings on Friday nights. If there’s sports on TV, we do that. It’s really a day where we try to chill, take a nap if we can, and sleep as much as possible.”
The Captains Run under Steve Borthwick is a walk and talk before an evening meeting
SATURDAY
‘In the morning you do get more soft tissue therapy, but it is advisable not to use the sauna or ice bath 24 hours before a match, so we generally don’t do that on Friday or Saturday.
“On match days we sleep as long as we can, but there is a sleep limit. I think it was 2pm last week. Aled knows all the science behind it and he tells us that you can’t sleep after 2pm for a 7pm kick-off.
‘The only other thing we do is four hours before kick-off, we do an activation. That will be in a room in the hotel, where we do some stretching with our strength and conditioning coaches, and then we do some max effort exercises like med (medicine) ball slams or squat jumps – things that boost your testosterone.
‘Again, there’s science behind it, but I’m not the guy for that – I just do what I’m told! Doing those things makes us feel good, and then of course we go to the stadium, do the warm-up and then we go into the game.’