On the eve of England Rugby’s greatest test Tom Wood addressed the world’s media following the side’s final team run at Twickenham Stadium. It is easy to see why Tom Wood has captained England whenever Chris Robshaw hasn’t been around. The Northampton Saint is a great rugby player as well as being an intelligent and articulate man, a leader in every sense of the word.
England’s journey to this tournament started when Stuart Lancaster took over as interim head coach in 2012 and every decision since has been made with this competition in mind. As well as the physical challenge that lies ahead for England Rugby they have an emotional one to conquer too as Tom shared;
“It is going to be a great occasion. We have had a glimpse of some of the build-up. The stadium looks fantastic. It can work either way either the emotion can get the better of you and you can find yourself forcing things and getting carried away or you can be inspired to deliver the performance of your life."
"It's a difficult balancing act - you want to be in the zone, focus on your game and have tunnel vision but at the same time we want to take full advantage of playing at home and the crowd. We want to soak all of that up. We don’t want to look back and feel it passed it by. We want to really utilise that as best we can while keeping our eyes on the prize."
It is fair to say that the Fijians are renowned for their attacking X factor and will, given the opportunity, have a go from anywhere. The question from those of us on the outside is just how do you combat that? Tom’s answer was clear;
“Collective pressure. If you race up individually and you have one guy with loads of energy and the others watch him do it, he will probably get stepped and the energy used against him. You need that next guy following up, if somebody steps they have no momentum because they end up in a big tackle and they have slow ball and are on the back foot. Fiji on the front foot, with their running game, the ball in the wide channels, are an incredibly dangerous team. We have to see how they react on the back foot, with stodgy ball.”
As we all know months, and indeed, years of preparation has gone into this Rugby World Cup and in a few hours the tournament will commence. Even with the presence of Pool A you have the feeling that this Rugby World Cup is an open one, when it comes to the leading Tier 1 nations there are a number of teams that have the ability to win it and this means none can switch off for a second;
“I know we’re not entitled to win it. There’s some great teams out there and I can’t promise you success, but all I can say is that we’ve left no stone unturned in terms of our preparation from 1 to 50 really including the initial squad that started out have just given themselves to the cause, handed themselves over and put themselves through absolute torture in the gym and on the field, committed to making each other better, and I feel ready. I feel prepared and I hope that those lessons were learned from the Six Nations campaigns and will stand us in good stead."
“We’ll manage the hype and the expectation and all that comes with that on home soil. But I’m humble enough to know that there’s no entitlement and no guarantee. The bounce of the ball can be a cruel thing, or a refereeing decision not going your way, so we just have to do our best to give ourselves the best possible chance in each and every game.”
England are the favourites and they must deliver appropriately for Fiji won’t lack for motivation, desire or ability as Tom knows;
“It’s fair to see Fiji will be underdogs and that will galvanise them as will the sense of occasion and the hype. It will no doubt bring the best out in them. But I feel ready and prepared and feel I can speak for the whole team. We look ready in training. We lacked some cohesion in the first two warm-up games against France because of the nature of the first hit out and some mixed combinations. I feel we showed what we are capable of against Ireland but we still feel there is more to come from that. We feel we can step it up another gear from there.”
For the twenty three England players the waiting is almost over, Pennyhill Park is likely to be a slightly subdued placed today as the match day squad try not to get what Wood calls 'hotel fatigue' and stay fresh for the greatest challenge of their rugby lives.
