Before lockdown George Furbank was living a life he hadn’t expected. At least not yet. Nobody had really expected Elliot Daly, full-back for his past 21 England Tests, to be switched to the wing, accommodating a player who has played more times for Cambridge in the national leagues than he has for Northampton Saints in the Premiership.

He wasn’t just handed a debut on a Lions-year summer tour, or thrown a cap in the weaker of the Autumn Tests, or even given a handful of minutes at the end of a game already won either. The 23-year-old, that a fair few England fans probably had to Google, was put in the starting fifteen against France, in the opening game of the Six Nations, in front of almost 80,000 fans in the Stade de France. A week later, having joined the rest of the England team in being shellacked by a resurgent French side, he started again, this time helping his side steady the ship in horrendous conditions in Scotland, just a paltry 67,000 watching this time.

And then, a few weeks later, the combination of an injury niggle and the return of senior players, meant it was all over. “It’s all been really surreal, a strange few months,” he says, looking back over his incredible start to the year, “I wasn’t expecting an England call-up and then wasn’t expecting to play too much, so to get those two games was amazing.

“It was definitely a surprise,” he continues. “I knew that I’d had a few good games but I’d still only played 30 games and to be called up to the squad… I was looking forward to getting in there and learning off the players and the coaches, but I wasn’t expecting too much to play but then I got called in to play in that first game which was a massive shock.”

George’s opportunity came when Anthony Watson struggled with injury during the training camp in Portugal. “Eddie just came up to me before the training session and said ‘look, the back three this week will be you, Jonny [May] and Elliot’. He just told me before training started and we got straight in to the session – it was kind of nice in a way because you didn’t get a chance to sit and think about it really, you were just ‘bam’, straight into the training session.”

Similarly, his introduction as a member of the England squad hadn’t been through a press release or phone call either. “I got added to a WhatsApp group,” he says, explaining his ‘call-up’. “That was the first thing I knew. I was actually out for dinner at the time and got a message that I’d been added to the ‘England Six Nations WhatsApp group’.

“It was just a ‘congratulations you’ve been added to the England Six Nations squad’ and then a few schedules came through.

“I had a scroll through to see who else was on it and it was nice to see there were five of us from Saints: Lewis [Ludlam], Fraser [Dingwall], Mitch [Alex Mitchell], Courtney [Lawes] and me, a nice little group of us, which helps.”

As calmly as he took the England squad call-up, the first-team start was next level. “When it officially got announced, probably from then the nerves started and then you go to France and the team gets announced and you get messages flying from left, right and centre and that adds to the nerves, I guess.

“The anthem was really special,” he continues, taking us to the match itself. “I never thought I’d get the opportunity to do that and then just playing in front of that many people was really different – I’ve probably only played in front of 23-25,000 people max before, so to play in front of that many people was crazy. And the conditions weren’t really ideal, I didn’t have the game that I wanted to have but I learnt a lot.”

France ran amok in the first-half, taking a 17-0 lead into the break, although George was far from alone in being taken by surprise. “[I made] a few basic errors that I’d never expect to make, that I probably wouldn’t make if it was a Saints game, and that was the most frustrating thing,” he admits. “If it was a poor pass or something then I deal with it, but it was basic errors that I know I should have done better.

“Whenever you go to Stade de France it’s always a tough game, but the more frustrating thing was that we didn’t play how we wanted to play, we didn’t have our best game.

“I was a bit down, I never like losing games,” he says of the aftermath. “I hate losing games but it was different for me because my parents got to come into the changing room after the game and I got presented with my cap, so that was pretty special and lifted me a bit.

“To share that moment with my parents was amazing – I think both of them were feeling a bit surreal being in that changing room.”

He was able to make amends the following week, as Eddie stuck with George for the Scotland Test, a squeaky but solid 13-6 win. “I felt less nervous going into the Scotland game,” says George. “I had now experienced the whole going into a national occasion and I knew what to expect and how to deal with those pressures a bit more, even though it was only a week later.

“It was a game you could never properly get into because you never knew where the ball was going and it was always going to be more tactical. I don’t know if I felt more comfortable that week even though the weather was shocking, but to get a few good touches lifts your confidence.”

Scotland was to be his last England game, for now. Against Ireland, George was rested due to an ongoing groin injury. “It’s an injury I’d been managing before that, so that week I was properly struggling with it,” he says. “But I had that week pretty much resting and then had a good build-up for the Wales week after but obviously didn’t make the team because Henry Slade and Anthony Watson were back fit again, and they’re two world-class players, so I was disappointed not to make it, but I was realistic with myself as well.”

George made his senior rugby debut for Huntingdon & District [of Midlands Two East South], aged seventeen. “Yeah, I played a couple of first team games at ten,” he says. “I was always down the club from a young age, chucking a ball around the field with the other kids, and then seeing my dad come off the field with cuts all over his face. He played flanker and he was probably quite annoying, he was one of those flankers. He wasn’t the biggest, as you can tell from looking at me, but I think he held his own.”

Growing up, parents Tim and Becky played a key role in harnessing George’s enthusiasm for sport. “I was very outdoorsy, I don’t think I had an XBox until I was about fifteen,” he says. “They tried to buy me Lego and all that kind of stuff, but I was having none of it, I just wanted to kick a ball around, play cricket or throw a rugby ball.

“Dad and Mum were really good with me and always, well most of the time, would come outside with me and kick a ball around with me.”

“Cricket was my number one until I hit my teenage years,” he admits. “I loved cricket, I was a left-arm spinner. Lord’s was my first dream – my first memory of cricket was the 2005 Ashes. I think I’ve probably watched that on DVD over ten times and so yeah, watching Freddie Flintoff, KP, people like that, they were my idols growing up.”

Attending a non-rugby playing school, it was through his club Huntingdon that George caught the attention. “I think at fourteen I realised I was quite good,” he admits, “and then I got selected by East Midlands, but I still never thought I was going to get a contract at Saints because I wasn’t the kind of player who really shone or really stood out, but the coaches there, Mark Hopley and Paul Diggin saw something in me. Even when they offered me that contract I was a little bit surprised.”

He turned down a place at Newcastle University (where his parents had met) to sign academy forms with Northampton. “I was going to go and study geography there,” he says. Is academia’s loss, Saints’ gain? “I was okay, I was never like a genius,” he says. “I think I got two A*s, six As at GCSE and then A, B, C at A-level. Not genius, but not dumb.”

Instead of university halls, he moved into an academy house. “I did that for the first two or three years, and you don’t have to pay rent, which is awesome,” he says. “You get to be with really good mates and they’re very nice houses as well, so I had a really good few years. There were three in mine, I was in one for the first year and then moved, so I shared with a variety of people, I shared with Alex Moon most of it and then lived with Fraser Dingwall, Fraser Strachan, and then one of the S&C guys.”

A boyhood Saints fan – “My whole family were Saints fans,” he says, “I actually went when they won at Twickenham” – the only initial stumbling block was with the senior players. “I found it difficult in the first years chatting to the big dogs, although they made it as easy as they could.

“The Islanders are always good fun, nice guys, and with Ben Foden it was weird to be around him, as he was someone I’d always looked up to growing up, so I just had to try and learn from him.”

Not making his break into the Saints side ahead of schedule, his second taste of senior rugby (after Huntingdon that is), came with Cambridge. “I had two years out on loan at Cambridge so got a lot of game time there which was really good, a proper taste of men’s rugby,” he says. “It’s a good standard of rugby – you’ve got young guys and guys who’ve played at a higher level than that and are dropping back down again, so it’s a good mix, I’ve got a lot to thank Cambridge for.”

In his first year, Cambridge had a promotion-winning season in National Two. “I was behind James Stokes [now with London Irish] who was tearing it up,” he says. “But in the second year [in National One] I was starting at full-back.

“The rugby suited me, Cambridge like to throw it around, it wasn’t too professional but it was taken seriously enough that you were playing at a good level, but they were a really good group of lads. I’ve stayed in touch with a few, they liked a beer which was nice, and helped you fit in when you’re going on loan with a new team and learning a new style of rugby.”

Next came a brief stint at Nottingham. “I went there in the depths of winter, so there weren’t too many exciting games,” he says. “I think there were two games when we had to change kits at half time as you couldn’t tell which team was which. More learning curves though, the Championship is a pretty physical and brutal league.”

Another learning curve would have been Australia, playing for the iconic club side Randwick.

“I was supposed to go out to Australia for the summer and play out there for Randwick, but I arrived, played one game and got injured so had to fly back,” he says.

“I’d only been there a really short while,” continues George, expanding on the story, “I’d arrived on the Tuesday, played on the Saturday, got injured and had to have an operation out there too.

“I snapped the tendon in my finger, so it wasn’t even a good injury. It was in a tackle, and I didn’t really feel it and then I was bending my hand into a fist and my finger just wouldn’t bend. It was fifteen minutes into the game.

“I’d gone out there with Moony [Alex Moon] – basically I’ve done all my loans with Moony, can’t get away from the bloke – and he was staying with a family in a ridiculously nice house and I was staying with one of the coaches. Luckily, the club were good and let me stay in Australia for two weeks.”

Before Australia, he made his debut for Saints, in the LV Cup, but there hadn’t been much sign it was the start of any kind of run. “You always have those doubts,” he says. “But because I’m not much of a physical specimen or one of those guys that are really unbelievable from a really young age, I knew that it was going to be a few years of hard work and training before I got my shot.

“I got it in my third year [the LV Cup], but I got injured on my debut, it was a small injury and that put me back. We were out of the LV Cup at that point too, so there wasn’t going to be other opportunities like that.”

Chris Boyd arrived in his fourth season and everything changed. “There is some uncertainty as a player [when a new coach arrives],” says George. “He doesn’t know what you’re like as a player, what you bring, so you have to impress again from day one. But he’s a really nice guy, he’s easy to talk to and he says it as it is.”

Returning to the Saints’ fold injured from his brief Australian rugby experience, George found Boyd overhauling the club. “He was implementing a whole new game plan. One that I’d never experienced before,” he recalls. “He could tell that rugby was going that way, and he’d brought that southern hemisphere-style play into it, and lot of the boys at the club got on board.

“We’re happy to chuck the ball about and play what’s in front of you, we have got that structure in there as well, and while it’s about backing yourself, he wants you to be confident and execute your own skill.”

A Premiership debut against Wasps followed Premiership Cup appearances, and George had got the clock ticking to the 30-apperance mark that would end with an England debut. Due to COVID-19, that counter hasn’t restarted yet. “I had one training session when I came back from the Six Nation with the Saints,” he says. “There was a training session on the Monday and then that was it, one day back and it’s all been stopped.

“I was really looking forward to coming back to Saints and getting going there and finishing the season and hopefully in the top four and winning a trophy – to have that all put on hold has been frustrating, weird, yeah, every emotion really.”

Although he’d just bought his first place, the fear of boredom through living on his own in lockdown, saw him seek out old roomies. “I’ve moved in with two of the guys [Dave Ribbans and Alex Mitchell], just for company really,” he says. “I don’t think I’d have managed by myself. I did use to live here and moved out in January but now I’m back here.

“We’ve been doing okay to be fair,” continues George, “we started off doing everything together but that’s slowly dwindled – you don’t want to spend too much time together – but we’re going okay, playing some garden cricket. But all of us work on the side as well, in terms of studying, so we’re keeping busy.”

What are you studying? “Environmental science at the Open University,” responds George. “It’s geography and environmental science. I liked geography at school and I have no idea what I want to do after rugby so just thought I’d do something that I enjoy and know a bit about.”

What does an environmental scientist actually do? Is that a job? “Honestly, not a scooby.”

Like all Premiership clubs, Northampton Saints have sent plans to keep the players fit.

“They’ve been sending out programmes, things like that, to keep fit, gym sessions, running sessions,” explains George. “It’s obviously rather limited with gym equipment so they’ve been pretty helpful. We’ve got a couple of sets of dumbbells, a hex bar, and we’ve been coming up with different things we can do with that.

“But I’ve got a nice little routine, I wake up at a similar time now and get my gym and run done in the morning, otherwise I know I won’t do it. I then get some uni work done and then the rest of the day is playing a bit of PlayStation, learning how to juggle and a bit of garden cricket. I also pop back to my house every now and then to get a few jobs done.”

How’s the mindset, focused? “I’m a little up and down, but reasonably solid,” he says. “Motivation wise, because you’ve got no definite end goal or when you’re going to be back playing at a certain date, it’s hard to be like ‘I’m going to get up at this time and get the gym session and run done’. But I’m doing okay, not been too bored.”

“I’ve been doing a bit of kicking with Mitch – we just go to the back pitches at Saints and we just hop the fence and go on there. The high ball area is something I’m always looking to improve, when you take a step up to international rugby, there’s a lot more box kicks coming your way. So I’ve been working to improve basic skills to catch and run and do it 9.5 times out of 10.”

Even in lockdown, George has tried to heed the lessons learnt from his England experiences. “I’ve watched the games back in terms of analysis,” he says. “The France game, that’s frustrating but all the emotions that you have there come flooding back when you watch it again.

“Scotland? Not too much to analyse.”

The two games in white have changed his mindset though. “I take things a bit more seriously,” he says. “Going to England and seeing how those boys look after their bodies was eye-opening, you realise how much work goes into that. Each level you go up is taken slightly more seriously and you realise you have to keep finding out new things to keep improving.”

As he looks back on the last few months, as his career didn’t just catch-up with his peers, but shot past theirs, he knows he’s now got to be patient again. “People develop differently,” he says. “My first few years were watching guys like Zach Mercer and Marcus Smith break into the first team, and it’s like ‘damn, why’s that not happening to me?’. It’s frustrating but those guys have been class for a while now.

“I was patient for those years and then everything’s suddenly come all at once which is weird but I want to get back playing and get back to the level I was at before.

“Firstly, I want to get back and play in a 15 shirt for Saints and play well there and, ultimately, be in contention for a summer tour with England.

“I don’t know how likely that tour is to even go ahead but I want to be in and around that England squad. Once you get there, your goal has to be to just stay there.”

Story by Alex Mead

Pictures by Philip Haynes

This extract was taken from issue 10 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.

George Furbank

Simon Middleton

Spain

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