England centre Seb Atkinson said he hopes the team showed fans a style of attacking play they wanted to see in their thrilling Six Nations finale in France.
Despite the narrow loss in Paris with France kicking the winning penalty to clinch a 48-46 victory in the final minute, England scored seven tries and were revived in their performance with Atkinson saying players left nothing on the field.
“We gave it everything and particularly the way that fans wanted us to play, I hope they saw that we can do that,” Atkinson told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.
“It wasn’t necessarily a change in tactics but a change in mindset that we can do this and we’ll see what happens. Our backs were against the wall and we had to throw a few punches.”
Atkinson made his Six Nations debut this month, playing the full 80 minutes of England’s final two games of the tournament against Italy and France.
The 23-year-old won the first of his four England caps last summer, starting the two Test wins away to Argentina.
He said while the tournament as a whole did not go as England wanted – with one win from five games – their performance against France was “really exciting”.
“To perform particularly in attack in the way that we did was really exciting, I was happy with a few touches that I got on the ball and the backline started to click which was nice,” he added.
“Ifs and buts and what could have been and we could have had a very different day but it will definitely be a game that I remember for the rest of my career and beyond.”
