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England laugh off suggestion Owen Farrell has picked up an injury
By Liam Heagney
England have laughed off the suggestion that Owen Farrell is carrying a knee injury heading into this Sunday’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final versus Fiji in Marseille.
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Pictures emerged on Wednesday from training in Aix-en-Provence of the skipper with strapping around his left knee, but the idea that Farrell was potentially an injury doubt was dismissed at their media briefing later in the day.
Assistant coach Tom Harrison had claimed early on at the top-table session he attended with Jamie George and Elliot Daly that England had a clean bill of health ahead of their last-eight match. “Yes, everyone’s fit, everyone’s trained,” he said.
However, it was put to the scrum coach some minutes later that pictures of Farrell wearing knee strapping had emerged from the training session and he was asked to describe what had happened.
“He [Farrell] probably had his knee strapped would be the answer,” chuckled Harrison in reply. “Like I said, everyone is fit, everyone has trained fully today.
“There are no issues there. Perfectly fine. It would be just him preparing for a tough training session to make sure we are in the right place for the weekend.”
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A curiosity about England’s fortunate one-point, pool-concluding win over Samoa last Saturday in Lille was that hooker Jamie George played the entire 80 minutes with replacement Theo Dan left unused on the bench.
Was this a case of Steve Borthwick’s management not having faith in the less experienced Dan to sub on for his vastly experienced Saracens clubmate in a match that went down to the wire before England were eventually declared 18-17 winners?
“I don’t think it’s a case of not trusting Theo Dan, it’s more a case of the performance Jamie is putting in,” suggested Harrison. “It was a brilliant performance.
“The leadership qualities Jamie brings are probably irreplaceable in the group, so in tight moments we needed Jamie on the pitch and that is the decision that was made.
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“Theo is brilliant, Theo is the sort of human that goes to work every single day and just focuses on getting better.”
England are braced for a huge set-piece battle versus Fiji. “Last weekend we had some good challenges, we put on a good performance at the scrum,” suggested Harrison.
“We probably weren’t rewarded as we felt we could have been, but we provided some good quality ball to play off.
“Fiji will be another step forward with the strength they have got in their front row with (Eroni) Mawi, (Sam) Matavesi, (Luke) Tagi and you have got Peni Ravai, all these players have played in top leagues in the different countries, and they will pose a different challenge so we will be well prepared for that.
“If you look at how they have developed their game around their set-piece, they have managed to reduce the amount of penalties they gave away.
“They are big human beings who will rely on that and try to overpower you there, so we have got some strategies in place to deal with that.”
"Fantastic, men. Fantastic!"
– England polish their defensive press in Aix-en-Provence ahead of next Sunday's Rugby World Cup quarter-final versus Fiji in nearby Marseille. #ENGvFIJ #EnglandRugby #RWC2023 pic.twitter.com/1hPUz0rXVY
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) October 11, 2023
I watched the full match ( 80mins of my life I won’t get back) and let me tell you, there were none excellent performances from any England players.
They were uniformly shite from 1 to 15.