England happy to be unpopular at Rugby World Cup if it means beating Fiji to reach semifinals
AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France (AP) — To reach the Rugby World Cup semifinals, England’s players will have to make themselves more unpopular than they already are.
They’ve no problem with that.
“Outside of England, I think people probably don’t really like us too much,” England hooker Jamie George said on Wednesday, four days out from the team’s quarterfinal against Fiji — the darlings of the tournament because of their style of play and underdog status.
“And we’re OK with that.”
The English appear to be adopting an ‘us against the world’ mentality as a form of motivation ahead of their biggest match since the Rugby World Cup final in 2019, when they lost to South Africa.
On Tuesday, Billy Vunipola described England as everybody’s “first least-favorite team.”
“In terms of being public enemy No. 1, we are happy to take that mantle,” the England No. 8 said.
“We are seeing a lot of teams being talked up. Apparently there’s a top four in international rugby,” Vunipola added, presumably referring to Ireland, France, New Zealand and the Springboks — the highest-ranked teams in the world. “I didn’t know that there was a table. We are quietly going about our work and confidently going about our work.”
George continued on that theme a day later, using as an analogy the fact that Saracens — the team where he plays his club rugby alongside Vunipola — is also far from being a favorite among neutral fans in England.
If anything, he seems to take it as a compliment.
“It’s not like we sit in meetings and talk about it’s us against the world,” George said.
“I think the main focus is making sure our fans are very proud of the work we are doing. Anything outside of that we aren’t too bothered about.”
England captain Owen Farrell sparked fears about his fitness on Wednesday by training in Aix-en-Provence with heavy strapping around his knee.
Assistant coach Tom Harrison played down any concerns at a news conference later, however, saying: “Everyone’s fit, everyone’s trained fully today. There’s no issues there.”
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AP Rugby World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby
