Lawes backs England to bounce back in Six Nations
England's Courtney Lawes (left), Maro Itoje (centre) and Ben Youngs react after the Guinness Six Nations match at the Stade de France - Credit: PA Wire/PA Images
Hackney-born Courtney Lawes has backed his England colleagues to respond from their Six Nations Rugby opener defeat against France by getting back to winning ways next Saturday against auld enemy Scotland.
The young, resurgent and vibrant new-look French outfit, who were backed by a pretty vocal and partisan crowd at a rain-drenched Stade De France, came flying out of the blocks and stunned the World Cup finalists to move 24-0 up after 54 minutes.
Highly-touted scrum-half Antoine Dupont, 23, played an inspirational part in the home side's much deserved victory as converted tries from Vincent Rattez and captain Charles Ollivon plus Romain Ntamack gave the Parisian home crowd plenty to sing about.
However, a brace of brilliant tries from Johnny May converted by Saracens' Owen Farrell, who added a late penalty, gave some respectability to the scoreline as it ended 24-17.
It was a game of two halves as Lawes, who plays his club rugby for Gallagher Premiership outfit Northampton Saints, said: "We didn't come out of the blocks quick enough as we wanted to.
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"With them being the home team the crowd certainly got behind them in the first half. Fair play to them, they did come out of the blocks better than us."
It was a pretty big ask to turn around a commanding deficit but to give Eddie Jones's troops credit they did perform much better in the second half which will give them plenty of positives going into Murrayfield in Edinburgh this Saturday.
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Scotland will also be looking for their first victory in their Six Nations campaign following their 19-12 defeat away at Ireland.
"With our resilience and our fight, the fact we never gave up," added flanker Lawes.
"We were ready to play for each other, even when it seems like it was all over. I think that is something we can certainly take away.
"Obviously there will be plenty of technical bits in terms of how we are going to go forward in conditions like that, where you can't really move the ball too well, so it's all things we can learn."
