Richard Cockerill has hit back at calls in New Zealand to outlaw the maul by declaring England will enthusiastically continue to use an important weapon in their arsenal.
Former All Blacks coach Wayne Smith, who helped mastermind the 2011 and 2015 World Cup triumphs as well as the Black Ferns' global success last year, believes it is "legalised obstruction" and would "get rid of it entirely".
England scored three tries through driving mauls in Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations 31-14 victory over Italy, prompting head coach Steve Borthwick to remark that "they certainly enjoy a maul at Twickenham, so I was pleased to see a few".
Cockerill insists the disapproval of Smith, a respected figure in the game, is purely a result of Kiwi shortcomings.
"The game is the game, isn’t it? We can all play the same way or we can all play slightly differently," England’s forwards coach said.
"Generally, the teams that moan about the maul are the teams that aren’t very good at it.
"English rugby is built on set-piece – the good club teams have a good set-piece. National teams have good set-pieces, whoever they are.
"If we have an advantage in the maul, we should take advantage of it. It would be stupid not to."
In addition to the maul being highly-effective in the round two win over Italy, a step forward was taken in the scrum as England look to restore a traditional pillar of their game.
When Eddie Jones was sacked in December, he left behind the worst performing scrum of any tier one nation in 2022. Cockerill (below) is overseeing a rebuilding process that required input from officials.
"We have spent more time on it and we have had a lot of dialogue with the referees, especially Wayne Barnes, Joel Jutge and Phil Davies from World Rugby," he said.
"Basically we asked 'what do you think of our scrum, what do we need to work on?' We have taken lots of inputs from the officials because that has not been as good a relationship as we would have liked.
"The perception was that we were a little bit ill-disciplined, a bit reckless. We were ranked 10 out of 10 in tier one post-autumn and that tells its own story.
England lead Italy 14-0 thanks to this Oliver Chessum try - live now on @RTE2 and the @RTEplayer #RTErugby #SixNations pic.twitter.com/Ri6e4z6yuN
— RTÉ Rugby (@RTErugby) February 12, 2023
"You should take that personally because that’s part of our identity as a team. We just had some conversations and then we have gone about fixing it, making sure our stability is good and doing lots of reps on the training field.
"The boys have worked hard and we have got a good pack of forwards. It’s just keeping them honest and working them harder than we probably did previously.
"We will get a lot better. Stats-wise we are pretty good at this point but there is still a fair bit we can tidy up."
Courtney Lawes will resume full training for the first time on Thursday having recovered from a calf injury, with England ready to select him for the clash with Wales on Saturday week.
Meanwhile, Cockerill believes that Wales' players will be galvanised by current off-field issues.
Player strike action is thought to be a possible option amid an ongoing contracts freeze in Welsh rugby.
A meeting is planned, scheduled in the next week, between Welsh Rugby Players’ Association officials and players.
Recruitment is currently on hold for Wales’ four professional regions of Cardiff, Ospreys, Dragons and Scarlets, while budgets are not in place with a new financial agreement between the regions and Welsh Rugby Union yet to be confirmed in writing.
That has sparked concern that a sizeable number of players whose existing contracts expire at the end of this season will head away from Wales, with players and their families currently engulfed by uncertainty.
"I think if anything it will probably galvanise them because they have their issues," Cockerill said.
"I don’t really understand what the politics of it is, but from my experience, any hardship with a playing group generally brings them tighter together.
"We will start to get into Wales next week. We will treat them with respect, as we always do.
"England have always found it difficult in Cardiff, but we are preparing and getting our minds purely around that. What Wales are doing with their players is not really our concern."
Wales have won five of their last seven games against England in Cardiff, including three victories on the bounce.
But they will tackle Borthwick’s team on the back of comprehensive Six Nations defeats against Ireland and Scotland.
Cockerill added: "I think if players feel they have to stick up for themselves, they stick up for themselves and do what they have to do.
"From an England end we are concentrating on training this week and we know how difficult it is going to be going to Cardiff."
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