Six Nations 2023: England's Jamie George apologises to fans after record defeat
- Published
Six Nations 2023: Highlights England 10-53 France
Jamie George has apologised to England fans after their 53-10 defeat by France and said he would be "gutted" to watch a performance like that at Twickenham.
It was England's biggest home defeat of all time as the defending champions ran in seven tries to end an 18-year wait for a Six Nations win at Twickenham.
"Fans leaving early is tough to take because I can relate to that - I'm a fan myself," said hooker George, 32.
"I want to apologise because I'm one of them really."
The veteran Saracens player added: "I would be gutted if I'd turned up to Twickenham to see an England team play like that."
"We are sorry and we need to make sure that we get better and learn from this experience because it's clear we have a long way to go.
"We haven't been good enough for the England fans for a little while now and I can relate to what they're feeling."
"But what I'd like to say to them is please stick with us because we're going to fight and we're going to scrap to make sure we're a significantly better team going forward. Hopefully we don't disappoint them like that again.
"We didn't turn up against the second best team in the world. It isn't panic stations by any means, but there needs to be some conversations about how we move on from this."
You never expect to lose like that - Farrell
Owen Farrell says England's players are hurting after their second defeat of this year's tournament, with less than seven months to go until the World Cup in France.
"As an England player, you never expect to be in this situation," said Farrell.
"I don't think you ever expect to lose like that at home as an England team. You don't expect to lose like that anywhere as an England team.
"The result and the scoreline are hugely disappointing for us. It's never nice. Most of the people in the changing room have been through it at some stage. Not normally with England - definitely not normally with England.
"I'm gutted. Everybody in the changing room is disappointed to lose in the fashion that we did."
Farrell started the game on the bench as he was dropped for Marcus Smith, with the hosts hoping to employ a free-flowing style of attack against a perceived immobile French pack.
But France had too much power and dominated the contact, which limited the quality of ball Smith received.
"When you end up behind on the scoreboard and you're chasing, sometimes things turn out like that," said Farrell, who was introduced off the bench for Henry Slade in the 46th minute.
"I'm not sure it's a true reflection of our team but credit to France for the way they played, they were clinical. They got away early on and it was hard for us to get back into the game."
Having been so ruthlessly exposed by the second best team in the world, England travel to Ireland - the side ranked number one - in their final game of the contest next weekend.
Farrell says England are "chomping at the bit" to rectify their performance against the side, who are coached by his father Andy.
"The end goal is not any different for us because we've got to improve and we knew that before this game. We definitely know it after. We have to improve together," he added.
"This will make us have a good look at ourselves and I imagine that after this everybody is chomping at the bit to get going again."