England must cope with early intensity in Australia quarter-final, warns Ben Youngs

Will Macpherson18 October 2019

Ben Youngs says England must learn lessons from their last World Cup knockout match and avoid being “shocked” by the intensity of Saturday's quarter-final against Australia.

Scrum-half Youngs is one of just four survivors in England’s squad from the team that lost to France - who led by 16 points after half an hour - eight years ago in Auckland.

Four years later, as hosts, Stuart ­Lancaster’s side failed to make it out of the pool stage, with defeat to ­Australia confirming their exit.

Since, under the coaching of Eddie Jones, England have won six consecutive matches against the Wallabies - and scored a try in the first 10 minutes of 12 of their last 19 games.

Youngs said: “It’s a fantastic occasion. I was fortunate enough to play in 2011 and my experience of that is just about making sure the intensity of the game doesn’t shock you in the beginning.

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“France raced into a lead that day and we couldn’t pull ourselves back, so it comes to making sure we come out of the blocks, bring that intensity from the start.

"I’m sure [Australia] will be saying the same thing, so I imagine the first 20 minutes will be pretty full-on. We need to make sure we get the start we want.”

No player in England’s squad has ever won a World Cup knockout match, the last being the 2007 semi-final win over France in Paris, but Youngs is sure England can break that duck here on Saturday.

“We clearly weren’t good enough in 2011 or 2015,” he said. “But I feel this squad is more capable of achieving something. We’ve just got to make sure when we take the field, we relax, we have clear thinking and we go out there and put our best foot forward.

“It goes without saying that for everyone involved, all this preparation, we have been in camp since June, you aren’t going to go out there and accept things not going your way.

AFP via Getty Images

"You are going to fight right until the end. We have some boys in this team who don’t know when they are beaten.”

Head coach Jones yesterday urged his team to invoke the do-or-die “samurai spirit” and to defend with brutality - a theme picked up by defence coach John Mitchell.

“We enjoy defence,” he said. “It’s infectious to us, it gives us energy. It’s important to dominate the collision. That creates slowness of ball and it brings opportunities. Ultimately, defence is a form of attack and you have to feed your attack.”

Both sides sprung ­selections surprises on Thursday, with Jones dropping George Ford for Henry Slade and Australia plumping for Jordan Petaia, who is 19 and has just two caps, at outside centre.

“[Slade’s] massive for us,” said England’s other centre, Manu Tuilagi. “He can play, run, kick, he’s an all rounder, so for him to be in our back line adds a massive part to our game, especially with Faz [Owen Farrell] at 10.

"We have played together a couple of times before, but haven’t done for a while. But we understand each other well and look forward to tomorrow.”

Australia captain Michael Hooper cut a relaxed figure as he addressed the media, saying he felt “alive and ready to go”.

“It’s not a normal week, it’s a quarter-final, so how good is that?” he said. “To be here with this opportunity tomorrow, yeah, I’m nervous, but that’s good, it means you care.”

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