Defender-in-chief Barritt no softy
THERE were two reasons why the England hierarchy ended last season’s Six Nations Championship in a strop: firstly, they finished second rather than first for the fourth consecutive tournament; secondly, the Red Rose’s defence was “soft round the edges”, to borrow head coach Stuart Lancaster’s term.
If Brad Barritt, Saracens’ centre and England’s organiser-in-chief when it comes to playing without the ball, has his way, it will not be soft anywhere over the forthcoming weeks of World Cup business.
“We want to be the best defensive team. We want to be the most physical team, the team with a defence that forces opponents to make the errors that present us with attacking opportunities.”
Barritt’s name has been among the first on the team sheet since Lancaster succeeded Martin Johnson following the 2011 World Cup shambles.
The coach had worked with the centre at second-tier Saxons and had come to admire his bravery, efficiency and hardheadedness in erecting and manning the barricades.
It might even be said that Barritt acts as a comfort blanket for the coach – that he offers control, consistency and certainty in a sport that can easily descend into chaos.
Goals
“We don’t set goals for ourselves when it comes to the number of tackles we make in a match, because each Test is its own entity,” the South African-born centre said.
“What we do say is that we want to be comfortable in going 30 or 40 phases in defence without conceding cheap points or giving away penalties. We want a defence that is prepared for everything, and in a condition to get results off the back of what we do.”
Precious little shakes Barritt to the core: anyone who can suffer a sliced eyeball and attempt to keep playing in the face of perfectly reasonable medical advice, as he did in Durban three years ago, cannot fairly be described as one of life’s drama queens.
Meanwhile, Fiji, who take on England in the tournament opener on Friday, had enjoyed excellent preparation and had no injury worries, head coach John McKee said.
The Pacific Islanders hope to cause a huge shock in front of 80 000 fans at Twickenham.
Fiji will pick their side to face England today, with their opponents already having named a full-strength line-up – one McKee “pretty much” expected, and he believes Fiji can cause them problems.
“We have a way that we believe plays to our strengths, which doesn’t change a lot depending on who we’re playing,” McKee said.
“We’ve watched England play a lot of games, and we’ve watched their players play a lot of games, so we think there are some chinks there that we can exploit. There’ll be parts of the game when it’s quite open. It’s Test match rugby, and there’ll be long periods of time when both teams are trying to establish a field position or get out of their half.
“I expect there’ll be periods of quite tight rugby interspersed with periods of open play.”
The Fijians are ranked ninth in the world, but find themselves in the toughest of the four pools with England Australia and Wales, as well as complete outsiders Uruguay.
But McKee is certain his side will not be overawed.
“In a lot of ways there’s two sides to it. There’s the challenge and the motivation of playing the opening game. That in itself is a big motivator for the team’s performance,” he said.
“It’s actually been low key. In a lot of ways it hasn’t been different from other Test match preparation.” – The Independent-Reuters