We’ll crunch the numbers
Yesterday’s rankings, which also featured Wales at No 5, Ireland at No 6 and Scotland at No 10, will be the ones the teams carry into the tournament with no more warm- up fi xtures before the opening game, when England face Fiji a week on Friday.
It is not the listing England aspired to ahead of their home World Cup – the RFU set a target of the top two in 2013 – but within the squad there is a determination to prove the rankings wrong and harness the momentum from Saturday’s win over Ireland.
There will be intangibles in play at the tournament within a close- knit group which scrum- half Ben Youngs believes will make nonsense of the numbers.
“When you are together for the last four years like we have been, you make some great mates. When you have been working as hard as we have and seeing each other claw themselves through training sessions, you get a real respect for each other,” said Youngs.
“When I look to my left and right, I know he will dig it out for me and I will try and dig it out for him. That goes a long way in rugby.
“Sometimes it isn’t the best team that win, it is the team who want it and are willing to put it all on the line. We have that here.
“It is show time next Friday night and everyone will be keen for that. We will still be grafting on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, making sure we get everything spot on because, ultimately, we are here to try to win it.”
The unity Youngs points towards is what every team seeks. It is only under the intense pressure of a World Cup that Stuart Lancaster will fi nd out if England really do have the solid foundations his approach has attempted to put down, but Youngs has no doubts.
As a survivor of England’s ill- fated 2011 World Cup, he says it is a wholly different environment to the one that fell apart in New Zealand.
“Stuart’s ambition has always been to create a club atmosphere at international level,” said the Leicester Tiger.
“There are players from eight different clubs so you have eight different opinions of how the team should play and how the team should act around the camp. Stuart has done a phenomenal job of saying, ‘ No, this is how it is done here’. Everyone has bought into that. That alone is extremely powerful.”
While No1- ranked New Zealand have embarked on a countrywide tour ahead of their departure for the defence of the trophy, England have been deliberately low- key and unshowy. They will, though, break cover briefl y tonight to attend a send- off concert in their honour at London’s O2 arena, at which Take That will be topping the bill.
Their own chance to shine is coming and they know they will have another card to play that the world rankings ignore: the Twickenham Factor.
England, at home, are a handful and, with the sort of support they enjoyed against Ireland on Saturday, they can count on the mythical 16th man. “The noise was incredible. It was electric before kick- off and it certainly gave everyone a taste of what is coming,” said Youngs.
“The home crowd will be a huge factor. We want to use it as a weapon and we want to make sure teams fear that. ”