"He's born to do great things" – England centre Ollie Lawrence backs Fin Smith for stardom
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England achieved a milestone victory last weekend, as Steve Borthwick’s side finally have their long awaited win over tier one opposition.With the exclusion of the Summer and Autumn victories over tier two nation Japan, England had endured a disappointing run of six consecutive defeats to likes of New Zealand (three times), Australia, South Africa and Ireland.
It was the second round of the 2025 Guinness Men’s Six Nations that at last ended the drought for a top Test triumph, as England toppled France in the final minute for a 26-25 win at the Allianz Stadium. The script could not have been written any better in Twickenham’s dramatic finish, as England rallied back from Louis Biellie-Biarrey’s 75th minute score, as Elliot Daly broke free for a last grasp try. The pressure mounted upon fly half Fin Smith, who then coolly nailed the all-important conversion to seal the win.
The Northampton Saints man led the England back-line with great aplomb in only his first Test start, and took the headlines for his side after Marcus Smith struggled to score important points from the kicking tee. England centre Ollie Lawrence and Fin Smith share a history that dates back to their time with Worcester Warriors, and the midfielder expressed how it would take more than just the high stakes of Test match-winning pressure, to get under the skin of the ice-cool Smith.
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“Fin’s one of those boys where I think he doesn’t let something like that knock him.” Lawrence said. “I’ve known him for a long time and those things just don’t get to him. He’s too good a player and mentally he’s strong enough to deal with that. He really stepped up today and I was really proud of him. It was a special moment for both of us, being able to take to the field, both coming from Worcester together and coming through the academy together. I’m buzzing for him, and proud of him. “
Steve Borthwick’s decision to start the relatively inexperienced Fin Smith, was well received by England fans following a brilliant showing from the 22-year-old. The pre-match focus was of course thrust upon Fin and Marcus Smith, as the Saints man shoved the Harlequin out from his regular 10 shirt, to instead take the lead at fullback. Lawrence enjoyed having both Smiths on the pitch during the win over France, and expressed how having Marcus at 15 brings a different element to England’s attack.
“It was good, it was exciting. Fin’s come on in a big way over the last few years, like I said, he’s born to do great things, and so is Marcus. There’s x-factor everywhere, you put him anywhere on the field and he’ll do something special. Having your best players on the field always helps like Steve said in the week.
“We had a re-jig this week, starting Fin at 10 and Marcus at 15. I thought it worked really well today, having those couple of extra distributors on the field allows us to get it in the wide channels, and an extra bit of our kicking game we added to it. I thought it worked really well, and we’ll wait and see what happens moving forward.”
Lawrence hopes that his side will now utilise this winning momentum, ahead of the third round of the Six Nations, which takes place in a fortnight’s time. England enter their fallow week eager to maintain this winning feeling, before hosting Scotland for the latest Calcutta Cup clash on February 22nd. Lawrence backs his team for back-to-back victories, having endured so much frustration in recent months.
“A mixture of buzzing, relief, everything really. I think we've been pushing for that victory and we fell short last weekend. So to come here, back at home, and beat a top team like the French is immense for us. We're really happy. Scratch that one off and bit of recovery, we've got the fallow week and then we'll look forward to Scotland.”
“There's huge belief within this squad, that we can go far as a team.” Lawrence said. “The results weren't coming for us. Obviously we were all frustrated. Like fans, we have expectations for us to win games and we weren't quite there. But last week we took real promise and belief from the fact that we can actually go up against the top sides.
“We led last week (against Ireland) but we let it slip away and this week we managed to hold on and make sure we kept firing shots at the French. In the end we managed to get the win and we can use it as a launchpad to move forward and hopefully we can rebuild, recover and go again against Scotland.”
England captain Maro Itoje expressed how he was delighted to see his side fight to the very end, to record a famous win at the Allianz Stadium. England’s mindset shift has come as a result of falling repeatedly short throughout the second half of 2024, with Lawrence impressed by how this England team continues to grow.
“You live and you learn from these opportunities. We’ve been in these positions before and it’s shown how the group has grown as a whole really. From the fact we didn’t just let them implement their game plan, we imposed ourself on them which is one thing we spoke about in the week is making sure we impose our gameplan for a full 80 minutes and I think we did that today.”
“The full 80 (minutes) we attacked the game. I'd say this week we didn't look to park up, or be happy with where we were in the lead. We carried on going and kept doubling down on what we were doing. Us putting pressure on and continually putting pressure on, with that a bit of accuracy, and being able to finish off those opportunities was huge. Obviously we managed to get the win in the end.”
Lawrence could well face off against a well-known Bath teammate, when Scotland arrive in South West London for the third round of the Six Nations. Gregor Townsend will be hopeful that his fly half Finn Russell will make a full recovery in time for the Calcutta Cup match, after a nasty clash of heads with Darcy Graham curtailed Russell’s match after just 21 minutes against Ireland this past Sunday. When asked how England could stop Russell should the halfback return for the Test, Lawrence said;
“I do know him pretty well, and I probably don’t have the answer for that one yet. He’s another exceptional talent. I don’t think going after him on your own – it’s kinda similar to the French with Dupont – if you go after him, you create holes elsewhere.
“So it’s about being aligned as a team, being defensively aligned, then off the back of that, putting pressure on them. They have to make tough decisions, sometimes it’ll work for them, as they’re both great players, but hopefully we can put pressure on him and shut him down as much as we can.”
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