England Rugby have been building for this home Rugby World Cup since Stuart Lancaster took over as interim coach in 2012. Every single decision has been made with this tournament in mind, it has been their sole focus and on Friday night they have to kick off their tournament with a victory. The white hot pressure of a home Rugby World Cup is here, it is D day and England must carry the hopes of a nation on their shoulders and deliver high quality, winning rugby from the word go.
England Rugby Stats & Facts
Chris Robshaw will lead the team for the 39th time and equal the total tally of England's 2003 Rugby World Cup winning captain Martin Johnson. Now, only Will Carling has captained England more times with 59 tests.
Tom Youngs is one of four players that has appeared in all of England’s 15 RBS 6 Nations matches since 2013. The other three are Chris Robshaw, Dylan Hartley and Mako Vunipola.
Friday night will be Dan Cole’s 49th starting appearance and only Jason Leonard and Phil Vickery have started more matches at prop for England with 102 and 64 starts respectively.
Four members of the squad selected for Friday night were involved in England’s last Rugby World Cup match, their quarter-final defeat to France in 2011 - Ben Youngs, Dan Cole, Courtney Lawes and Richard Wiggesworth.
Ben Youngs will reach a half century of caps for England on Friday evening and he is only the 4th scrum half to do so behind Kryan Bracken (51), Danny Care (52) and Matt Dawson (77).
Finally Mike Brown played on the wing in 10 of his first 13 matches under Stuart Lancaster before switching to full-back after an injury to Alex Goode.
The View from Camp
The road to this home tournament has been an undulating one for England Rugby, their performance in the Stade de France was decidedly under-par however their last outing at Twickenham Stadium erased many of the doubters. England Rugby are ready for this tournament and Mike Catt knows exactly the kind of threat that Fiji will pose;
“What you expect from Fiji is a big physical battle, they are big, big men and like you say they have a got a lot of X Factor in their team but for us to beat them we have to be at their best defensively, stop them playing the game that they want to play and play in the right parts of the pitch really. All in all it is going to be a great encounter and we are looking forward to it.”
England’s conditioning is first class, across the board you can see that the squad are in the shape of their lives after the most gruelling pre-season of their lives. However, Friday night will be about more than just physical attributes as Mike continued to share;
“The trick is to make sure that we are prepared mentally and physically, to be emotionally ready for what is going to be a huge battle ahead but to not be overcome by the whole occasion. There is a lot of experience in the team now and that is what counted a lot during that performance against Ireland and that experience should contain Friday night, that’s the plan!”
England Rugby: 15 Mike Brown 14 Anthony Watson 13 Jonathan Joseph 12 Brad Barritt 11 Jonny May 10 George Ford 9 Ben Youngs 1 Joe Marler 2 Tom Youngs 3 Dan Cole 4 Geoff Parling 5 Courtney Lawes 6 Tom Wood 7 Chris Robshaw (C) 8 Ben Morgan Replacements: 16 Rob Webber 17 Mako Vunipola 18 Kieran Brookes 19 Joe Launchbury 20 Billy Vunipola 21 Richard Wigglesworth 22 Owen Farrell 23 Sam Burgess
