Jamie George has issued a ‘This is England” rallying cry as he claims his side’s underdog status can topple Ireland at Twickenham.
The Red Rose skipper has described Andy Farrell’s side as the world’s best side, echoing the words of his boss Steve Borthwick,
However George is keen to use England’s home status as a barrier to Ireland’s back to back Grand Slam dream.
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“We believe that we’re going to go there and win,” stated the Saracens hooker.
“We don’t want anyone, any opposition, to come to Twickenham and have an easy ride.
“We have respect for them. I can’t emphasise enough how much respect we have for Andy Farrell and Peter O’Mahony’s team. They’ve got brilliant players across the board.
“But this is England. This is Twickenham. This is home. And we’re going to defend our home, like every Englishman would. “
Ireland are 12-point favourites and 6/1 on to make it a fifth victory on the spin against the old enemy.
A win would also see Farrell’s men surpass England’s old Six Nations record of 11 consecutive wins.
Yet George, 33, insists that England can use their outsiders tag to good effect – as they have done in the recent past when they finished in third place at the World Cup having just missed out on the final by losing to South Africa.
“I think historically it has worked well for us,” he said. “You look at the big performances in the World Cups.
“If you look at the World Cup just gone, no one gave us a chance against Argentina, no one gave us a chance against South Africa.
“I know the South Africa result did not go the way we wanted to but again the sort of performance showed the sort of team that we wanted to be.
“I think fundamentally we don’t want to go in with an underdog title whenever we’re playing at Twickenham.
“But at the same time we’re playing against a very, very good team, the best team in the world who we have the utmost respect for.
“Like Steve said, we’ve got to do everything we can to make sure that we play the game on our terms.”
(Image: Photo by Patrick Khachfe/Getty Images)
George is aware that there’s an assumption from many that Ireland will complete a clean sweep.
“I don’t really blame people for thinking that way because they are a great team. I think it’s off the back of some fantastic performances over the last two or three years.
“With a brilliant coach like Andy Farrell, they’re always going to be a great team.
“ But they’ve got to come to an end – they’ve got to get a result here.
“And we’re a team that’s hurting off the back of the Scotland result – hugely motivated, hugely excited about the potential of where we can go and it’s about time we put that out in the field.”
Nevertheless if Ireland get off to a fast start then the hosts could feel the crowd turn against them, as has happened in the recent past.
“We want to win this game,” George stressed. “We know that we can win this game.
“It’d be a huge thing for English rugby if we did because we’ve got a lot of belief from within this squad, from within this group that we’re capable of doing very, very special things.
“We’ve spoken about bringing people with us. A result like this at the weekend would be a huge way of going about that.”
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This story first appeared on Radio Today