Farrell: We can learn from one-day heroes and win our own World Cup
The next man who leads an England team into a sporting World Cup, rugby union’s Owen Farrell, watched spellbound as his cricketing counterparts pulled off their stunning last-gasp victory at Lord’s and urged his own players to be ready for anything as they prepare for their tournament in Japan in September.
The rugby squad watched the cricket final from their training base in Bristol and afterwards went straight into a team meeting.
“There are always momentum shifts in sport and you have to be ready for them,” said Farrell, who has assumed sole leadership of the team in the absence of injured hooker Dylan Hartley. “The margins are fine. You saw that when the New Zealand fielder [Trent Boult] stepped on the boundary rope as he tried to catch Ben Stokes. It was some occasion. I’ve never seen an end to a game like that one, in any sport. It was brilliant to watch. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to play in but that is exactly where you want to be.”
Scrum-half Ben Youngs believes that winning a World Cup is about trying to maximise each and every opportunity. “You have to be adaptable and flexible, be ready for every little bit of adversity,” he said. “Nine times out of 10, Boult would catch Stokes cleanly and not step back on to the boundary edge. That’s how fine the margins can be. The same with the throw that hit Stokes’s bat and went for four overthrows. You can’t plan for the detail of what happened. But you can plan for how you respond to it.”
Brad Shields and Willi Heinz, New Zealand-born players in the England squad, were also captivated by what unfolded at Lord’s. “I definitely wanted England to win,” Shields, the Wasps forward, said. “To see the emotion when they did was priceless. We had a meeting [scheduled] for just after that. But the meeting got pushed back and pushed back. It was one of those things that you just can’t miss.”
Heinz added: “The atmosphere was unbelievable in the team room. To get it done on home soil was awesome.”