England’s captain Chris Robshaw believes the national team will have more chance of success at next year’s World Cup with Owen Farrell in their starting XV, regardless of the position he plays. Bath’s George Ford is poised to take over at fly-half against Samoa on Saturday but Farrell is expected to feature at inside centre. The head coach, Stuart Lancaster, confirms his line-up this afternoon/on Wednesday.
The 23-year-old Saracen has been struggling for form so far this month but Robshaw insists he retains the unswerving support of his team-mates. “Owen’s a fantastic player,” said Robshaw, who will be leading out England for the 30th time this weekend. “I’m a firm believer that any team with him in is much better than a team that doesn’t,”. He’s a great guy to have alongside you... you need players like that in these tough environments.”
Not everyone is entirely convinced, however, that pairing Farrell with his long-time friend Ford is a guaranteed winner. “It’s a difficult situation putting Farrell and Ford on at the same time,” suggested Charlie Hodgson, who was England’s fly-half when his club colleague made his Test debut at 12 against Scotland in 2012. “Owen is a strong character and he wants to have control of what’s going on. He might find that a bit difficult to do from 12 and it might go against what George is trying to do at 10.”
The Wasps’ captain James Haskell is also poised to start in a reshuffled back-row alongside Robshaw and Gloucester’s Ben Morgan as England seek to end a sequence of five Test defeats. Richard Wigglesworth and Billy Twelvetrees are in the matchday 23, with Danny Care, Kyle Eastmond, Luther Burrell, and Billy Vunipola missing out. Haskell has not started since the first Test against the All Blacks in Auckland in June but is desperate to nail down a place against Australia next week.
“It’s a huge, huge opportunity, as simple as that,” confirmed Haskell, who was unavailable for the opening week of the QBE series because of illness. “Stuart has never led any of us to believe this is a half-term change of personnel to test a few things out before they just revert back to the team they had before. These are the guys he feels are going to do a job, then it’s open season for that game against Australia. I want to seize the opportunity as best I can. There is never ’next week’ with international rugby, because it is so competitive.”
Haskell, who has played the game all over the world since making his Test debut in 2007, does not disagree that England badly need a good victory, if only to bolster their supporters’ faith. “We don’t feel in crisis but what cements everything we’re doing is results. No-one reflects back in a year’s time and says: ’Oh, that was a narrow victory.’ They just want to see a ’W’, not hear: ’Oh, they lost but they’ve got a really good culture.’ Frankly that doesn’t matter.”
The flanker also insists England’s fortunes next year do not necessarily revolve around peaking now. “Yes these games are important and it would be great to have those wins in the bank, but my view is they don’t have any bearing on next year’s World Cup. Just because we lost on Saturday doesn’t mean we’re going to lose in nine months.”
England, meanwhile, are wary of a Samoan side currently in dispute with their own union. “When they click they’re going to take someone down.
They’ve had their troubles but they’re going to be fully united and it’s going to be a very tough encounter. We’ve got to have respect for them and a little bit of fear about under-performing. Then everything will take care of itself.”
BLOB Rugby union’s governing body, previously known as the International Rugby Board, has rebranded itself as World Rugby.
