England have warned their rivals not to typecast them as a dull, one-dimensional team as they prepare to launch the Rugby World Cup against Fiji on Friday night. English sides have traditionally been viewed in the southern hemisphere as either too old, too forward-orientated or too unimaginative but their young fly-half, George Ford, says a new era has dawned.
The 22-year-old Ford believes England’s attacking threats out wide are a match for anyone else’s and has made clear the home side will not simply resort to squeezing Fiji’s forwards out of the game at Twickenham. “We’ve worked hard as a team to try to get a bit more width to our attack and to create more opportunities,” said Ford. “The boys are getting the ball in their hands a lot more … the philosophy we want in attack is to try to score tries.”
England’s wings have collectively scored eight tries in their last four Tests and the starting duo of Anthony Watson and Jonny May are both bang in form, having contributed five tries between them in England’s three warmup games. “You’ve seen the threat that Jonny and Anthony bring with their speed, footwork and finishing,” said Ford. “In the last two games Anthony has finished two brilliant tries, one against France and that great take against Ireland, while Jonny [ran] over Tommy Bowe. In a one-on-one situation they are pretty lethal.”
It is not so long ago that a frustrated England wing, Mark Cueto, endured 18 Tests without registering a try but Stuart Lancaster’s squad have wider ambitions. While wary of Fiji’s counterattacking threat, the scrum-half Ben Youngs has promised his side “are not going to stick it up the jumper” and Ford also says England will remain flexible in terms of their style.
“It is all about making good decisions. If they have three or four men in the back field we don’t particularly want to kick it to to attack back. We’ve spoken about how dangerous they are if we are loose, but we’re not going to know precisely what to do until it is presented to us in the actual game. The coaches want us to be a decision-making team who adapt to what’s in front of us.”
Ford and his Bath colleague Watson also insist England will not be outmuscled behind the scrum by their strapping opponents, not least the 6ft 5in Fijian Nemani Nadolo. “He’s a massive threat for them, a huge bloke who can cause a lot of damage but there are parts of our game where we think we can put pressure on them as well,” said Ford, suggesting the home side would look to test the 20 stone wing aerially.
“But we also want to have a balance to our game and play on the front foot instead of letting them dictate things. We understand how big this World Cup is but we are pretty focused on just going out and playing rugby as we would in any other game.”
