Billy Vunipola spoke about England being public enemy number one at this Rugby World Cup earlier in the week. He wasn’t quite right. The reality is that there is no great tidal wave of hatred for them around France, just as there is no warmth of neutral support. Just indifference.
England are viewed as being so far outside the sphere of genuine contenders to win the World Cup with so few players that have made any impact on this tournament – the two that have, George Ford and Henry Arundell, are not even starting tomorrow – that they are largely ignored.
England can meet that with their own version of a Gallic shrug – who cares what the neighbours think anyway? But where they should worry is the lack of connection with their own public.
Head coach Steve Borthwick talks often about England’s brilliant support and it is true they have come over to France in the numbers but it seems to be as much about catching some autumn sunshine on the continent than any deep-seated buy-in to his team.
As far as the wider sporting public goes, there has been no avalanche of support building behind them as yet at this tournament. Captain Owen Farrell’s hope is that victory over Fiji – and the magic carpet ride it delivers into a World Cup semifinal – will trigger it.
“I can only think of me being a fan watching the football but there has always been a build-up during a tournament. The team wins one more game and the crowd grows a bit,” said Farrell.
“We felt that last time in Japan. Every time we played another game there seemed to be a lot more fans turned up. I’ve always thought the English people get behind their teams at major tournaments and I’m sure that will be the same here.”
This tournament is the potential shot in the arm the game desperately needs. English rugby has been on a big downer, what with the national side’s form in the run-up to France 2023, bankruptcies at club level and falling playing numbers at adult men’s level.
But World Cup fever remains an elusive commodity at home.
That may be partly down to an endless pool phase which lost its jeopardy for England as soon as they beat Argentina in the opening weekend but also because of the wider issue of a lost love affair for the Red Rose.
England hooker Jamie George gets why but also hopes against hope it can be rekindled with victory in Marseille and where that leads.
“Have the performances been consistently good enough over the last couple of years? No. So do I understand why the support might dip in and out? Yes. I’m the same, I want England to win every week and I want us to perform as well as we possibly can. We haven’t done that, but we have come to a World Cup, we’re four from four and we’re where we want to be,” he said.
“We spoke a lot before this tournament about how important it was for us to take our fans on a journey and it feels like we’re doing that. Hopefully a good performance on the weekend and hopefully a victory leads many more people to support back home who potentially might not be.”
