Out of what seems a genuine desire to put the team first, Steward nudged ego aside and refused to mope. His “very good” relationship with Borthwick, he feels, “certainly wasn’t damaged”. Steward was presented with areas to improve which, politely, he would prefer to keep private. “Yeah, if that’s alright?” he says. “I do apologise but that’s a conversation that I’ll leave between me and the coaches. I’ve got things I need to work on and that’s on me now.”
A reasonably safe bet, given the strengths of Furbank and how Smith returned as an auxiliary full-back, is that Steward has been asked to focus on his distribution and linking. In reality, this is an all-consuming task. And one cannot neglect existing strengths, either.
“From the outside in, you’d probably assume that it’s all on the pitch and it’s skills and stuff,” Steward explains. “Behind the scenes, it’s picking up with coaches, it’s watching a lot of rugby – too much rugby at times, probably – and fine-tuning these little things.
“I had great conversations with players here [at Leicester]. I had a good chat with Ben Youngs, and the first thing he said was that ‘of course you want to work on the other things and make your game more rounded, but don’t forget what got you to this spot – keep hammering home those strengths and get better at those’.
“You can always get better. I’ve never been a player who has been happy with where I am or happy with my skill-set. I want to keep developing.”
‘I’ll stick to the back three for now, but you never know’
A stint on the right wing, with starts there against Leinster and Northampton, is furthering Steward’s education: “You get to see the game from another perspective on the wing and there are so many transferable skills there that it will help me become a better player. I’ve told Dan [McKellar, the Leicester head coach] that I’ll give 100 per cent wherever.”
Several observers, including Sir Clive Woodward, have wondered how a more radical move to inside centre might go. “It’s been mentioned here and there,” laughs Steward. “And it’s never been something I’ve given much attention to. I’ll stick to the back three for now, but you never know.”
One would not expect Steward to duck a challenge, and he knows he can “put my hat back in the ring” for England, who take on Japan and New Zealand this summer, with some assured Tigers outings. McKellar’s men must mount an immediate response, because their loss to Northampton was chastening. The scoreline blew out after Solomone Kata’s red card as Leicester trailed 18-17.
“You sense in the changing room that everyone is devastated,” Steward says of that derby defeat. “It’s not something you can get over in a matter of hours and minutes. On Monday morning, we were probably still a little bit p—– off with our performance. Very quickly, you have to park that and understand that you’ve got a four or five-day turnaround to perform again.”
In a typically bright tone, Steward stresses that Leicester can reach the play-offs and salvage a play-off spot by beating Bristol Bears, Sale Sharks and Exeter Chiefs: “We’ve just got to win our next three and let the rugby gods sort out the rest.”
Control the controllables and work hard to change your fortunes; a tough, old lesson that will have been reinforced to Steward in recent months.