Ben Youngs says a first full house at Twickenham for 20 months will transform Six Nations flops England.
Eddie Jones names his team today to face Tonga, promising to refresh both the line-up and brand of rugby in the wake of England’s worst ever championship campaign.
A major difference from the spring will be the matchday atmosphere, with an 82,000 sell-out replacing the empty arenas in which the team bombed against Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
Youngs, England’s senior player with 109 caps, believes the return of the Red Rose legions can have a galvanising effect.
"Rugby is a game built on emotion,” he said. “The forwards go toe to toe and do things that normal people don’t do, trying to bash the hell out of each other.
“To do that you need emotion and when you’ve got 80,000 screaming that’s a pretty good way to get adrenaline and arousal levels going.”
Youngs says forwards like Ellis Genge, Kyle Sinckler, Courtney Lawes and Maro Itoje “feed” off big match atmospheres - fuelling them to “fly” into things.
“It’s incredibly different when you have nothing other than the S&C staff and the finishers on the bench shouting," he added. "Having our fans back is a huge advantage."
Jones wisely refuses to assume that the return of punters will automatically flick a switch and take England back to their 2019 best.
“Fans give you courage at times, they give you stamina and excitement at times and sometimes a team needs that little bit extra,” he said.
“I certainly think as we became an older team the influence of the crowd became greater and we probably missed not having them more than anyone.
“But we have got a different challenge now. A lot of the younger guys haven’t played in front of crowds and now they go to Twickenham which is the biggest rugby crowd in the world.
“They are going to have to get used to the expectation that the fans bring of wanting us to play well. We need to make sure they are so glad to be back at Twickenham.”
Jones ventured north to Murrayfield last weekend to scout Saturday’s opponents and saw a depleted Scotland side stick 60 points on the South Sea Islanders.
He witnessed the crowd disengage with half an hour of the game still to play and has a warning for his players.
“Our target is to make sure our fans don’t do Mexican waves," he said. "That we play such a good quality of rugby they haven’t got time to do that”.
His plan is for the intensity and physicality England bring to unsettle Tonga, which it did not do when they last met at the World Cup.
“Last season, statistically, we were getting a lot of opportunities in games without really capitalising,” Youngs added. “Around the 20 per cent mark.
“We want to capitalise way more than that; use the ball, shift the ball, go wherever where the space is and climb up that ladder of taking more chances.”
