Taylor: England focused on performance

England must rely on Ireland doing them a big favour on Friday night, though the French side’s form suggests the title is surely theirs to lose, but either way the 72-times capped Taylor says England must focus only on winning the match in the manner the side has been aiming for all season.

“Obviously there’s a chance we could be going into it knowing what we would have to do to win it but the key for us is playing how we want to play and getting a good performance in. I think we have come back well enough from that opening loss to France and although the 6 Nations is really important, everything this year is about building towards the World Cup. We have made a lot of mistakes and we are righting them slowly but surely. Points and attacking rugby is obviously nice but all we can focus on in Italy is that performance.”

Taylor believes Italy will present a tough challenge this weekend.

“They are just going from strength to strength and every time I see them they are better and better. They also have a big strong pack so there's a big battle for us in the tight five. They are quite unpredictable so there's no complacency from us going over there.”

By their standards, this has been a frustrating season for England who’ve had to watch France seize the initiative of a superb opening day performance and who are now odds on to lift their first title since 2005.  If there have been concerns about the manner of that loss then Taylor isn’t showing her hand.

“There is a lot of time between now and the World Cup and we are really lucky that we have a lot of time together between now and then which is a real positive for us. This is the most we've ever had for a World Cup. I think for us there is an element of getting back to knowing each other again too after the disruption of last year so we need to build our relationships between the backs and forwards again and we are making progress.”

“When you look back at that France game - they really did their homework on us. We had played each other the Autumn and I think they looked at that game really closely and they came out and hit us everywhere we thought that we were strong. We didn't have the answers on the day so big credit to them. They have a big pack and they used that against us. Since then we've really focused on the driving line out and we've been better and using our brains a bit more. We weren't boxing smart in that game and they took the upper hand. We’re getting there.”Taylor was very pleased to beat Ireland at Twickenham having been in the squad who were beaten comprehensively by the same opposition last season.

“That game was really hard work. They are a really good side and they put us to the sword last year. For those of us who played last year, it was putting to bed a few nightmares from then. We won this year without putting in our best performance. There was some relief after that but we know we are not firing on all cylinders yet.”

Taylor, who is set to play in her third World Cup this summer, also reserved praise for prop Rochelle Clark who broke the 90 cap barrier against Wales.

“I have known her for a long time and when we used to play at Henley as teenagers all she wanted to do was play for England and none of that passion has gone. She's the epitome of what forwards want to be in terms of that desire and commitment. She’s fantastic.”

Image thanks to Michael Taylor