THIS IS A FINAL ...IT MATTERS

Watson still haunted by THAT defeat to the Boks and that’s why he’s so fired up by Sunday’s French test

ANTHONY WATSON says losing the World Cup final with England has him fired up for the climax to the Autumn Nations Cup.

The tournament has delivered little by way of entertainment and its credibility has been badly undermined by France picking a second team for the final.

Watson’s Red Rose teammate Bi l ly Vunipola admitted: “As much as people want to build it up, this isn’t a World Cup final.”

But Watson, still haunted by the crushing loss to South Africa in Japan (above), insists Sunday’s showpiece is vital to England’s growth towards the next World Cup.

“We lost to France in the Six Nations, we also lost the last final we played in,” he said. “So this is a big deal. I don’t think the lads will be short on motivation.

“We want to win trophies, irrelevant whether it’s a tournament that’s just been made or one that’s been there for however many years. Putting yourself in finals is where you measure yourself as a player. It’s the highest pressure game you can play, a real test of you as a player and as a team.”

A year ago England failed that test badly in Yokohama a week after playing New Zealand off the same pitch. The memory eats away at Watson (right).

“I’m not going to sit here and say I’ ll get over it because I don’t think I ever will,” he said. “It’s about getting used to these finals and putting our gameplan into force, which we didn’t do in the last final.

“We haven’t focused directly on the tactics of the World Cup final, more that we were favourites going in and didn’t do what we said w e we re going to do. There were issues with the training week.”

Issues? “Minute things,” he replied. “Or things we thought were minute that probab ly should have been spoken about and weren’t.” Watson feels the difference was “probably just an edge, those one percenters in training”, but it amounted to the difference between dominating the

All Blacks and being battered by the Boks. England still do not know with any certainty why they blew their biggest game but want to avoid a repeat in 2023. The coaches continue to wonder whether they got the preparation wrong in terms of physical and emotional balance, coming off such a high as the semi-final. “It’s all about initiating the pressure and a year ago we weren’t able to,” said defence coach John Mitchell.

“To do that you’ve got to be very clear, tactically.” Get that right on Sunday and he hopes a by-product will be payback for France following England’s one defeat of 2020.

“It’s something that sits with us, something that at some stage you want to settle,” he said.