England begin life under Martin Johnson against the Pacific Islanders here Saturday knowing their tough-tackling opponents could inflict more than just their customary share of physical pain.
Several members of the combined team from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are among the leading lights in the English Premiership, while an England side boasting four new caps offers further hope of a first Test win for the Islanders.
However, England have had a big advantage in terms of preparation time, with Johnson allowed to spend a fortnight with his squad ahead of the first match of a November programme which also sees Australia, world champions South Africa and New Zealand at Twickenham.
By contrast, the Pacific Islanders only came together as a squad on Sunday.
Steve Borthwick, who like 2003 World Cup-winning captain Johnson is a second-row, will lead the side having been credited with doing a fine job in difficult circumstances during June’s 2-0 series defeat in New Zealand, when several England players were mired in allegations of sexual misconduct.
England got the training time they wanted thanks to an agreement with the Premiership clubs and Borthwick knows that now the onus is on the players to perform, starting on Saturday.
“International rugby is a massively intense environment so you need to have the energy to go into the games and gain a familiarity with the players around you,” Borthwick said.
“We have had that opportunity to train together for a couple of weeks. We know we have to improve as a team.”
Johnson, partly because of injuries to Mathew Tait and Nick Abendanon, has handed debuts to full-back Delon Armitage, wing Ugo Monye, New Zealand-born centre Riki Flutey and lock Nick Kennedy.
England’s back division has plenty of pace and in half-backs Danny Care and Danny Cipriani, who have just two Test starts between them, a duo with an eye for a gap.
Inventive back play has proved a problem recently for an England side that still reached last year’s World Cup final. But a combination of young talent and new attack coach Brian Smith, the former Australia and Ireland international, could give England more of an all-round game.
Johnson though, as he was as a player, remains the arch-pragmatist. “We want to play in a certain way not because people think it looks sexy but because we think it is the best way to win the game,” he said.
Fiji and Tonga lit up the 2007 World Cup in France after Samoa had punched above their weight in previous editions.
The Fijians, playing the free-running game for which they are famed, knocked Wales out of the tournament before giving South Africa a huge scare in the quarter-finals, with wing Vilimoni Delasau, in the Islanders’ team, scoring tries in both matches.
Yet none of the three nations are considered sufficiently ‘box-office’ by rugby union’s major powers to have anything but the most meagre of diets when it comes to international matches between World Cups. Hence the existence of the Islanders.
But captain Mosese Rauluni, a scrum-half with Premiership side Saracens, insisted: “We haven’t come here to be cannon fodder.
“We have a good experienced side – we hope to spoil Martin Johnson’s party and silence the crowd by winning the match,” added Rauluni, who has played in all six of the Islanders’ Tests.
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