Steve Borthwick said he had no doubt England would be written off for the World Cup semi-finals, but backed his players to once again rise to the occasion after scrambling past Fiji on Sunday.
Owen Farrell kicked 20 points and Manu Tuilagi and Joe Marchant crossed for tries as England battled to a 30-24 quarter-final victory over the Fijians to earn a meeting with the winner of Sunday’s later quarter-final between France and reigning champions South Africa.
“An immense credit to players for dealing with it. But what a performance by Fiji, not just tonight but this World Cup,” Borthwick said.
“What a team they are. Well coached and jam-packed with world-class talent. We knew it was going to be a tough game and it was.
“For large parts of the game we controlled it. There was a spell when Fiji scored back-to-back tries which Fiji can do well, probably better than anyone else in the world.
“But we stayed composed and got back ahead on the scoreboard and that’s what the players did.”
Borthwick said his team, which suffered a first-ever loss to Fiji, at Twickenham, in both sides’ final pre-tournament warm-up match, had been “written off” coming into the World Cup.
“A lot of people said we wouldn’t get out of the pool. We got out of the pool, now we got out of the quarter-final,” said Borthwick.
“Now these players have an opportunity in Paris in the semi-final. I am sure we will be written off again but these players rise to the occasion.”
Farrell said the arm wrestle had been “what we expected”, with Fiji crossing for two converted tries in the space of four minutes through Peni Ravai and Vilimoni Botitu to set up a nerve-racking final 12 minutes at the Stade Velodrome.
“They are a tough, tough team that can turn it on in the blink of an eye. I thought we started the game really well. We really got after it in that first half,” the fly-half said.
“We always knew Fiji were going to have some good patches and they did. To find a way to win and get through to the semi-finals is a big step forward but we know we have plenty of work to do.”
Farrell dropped a goal and a late penalty to pull England clear, but played down his contribution.
“The forwards did a great job and put it on the plate for us. I just had to knock it over,” he said.
“The effort of the full squad into this week has made it an enjoyable week and a week we’ve all got after,” he said. “We’re now in a big knock-out game.
“We’ll make sure we’ll look at (problems) and work on them going into this big week.”
Looking ahead to the semi-final at the Stade de France on Saturday, Farrell added: “It was a controlled performance at times, but there’s plenty that we can do better. There’s plenty we can still clean up.
“This team is finding ways to win, and when it came down to it, we did that today. We managed to wrestle our way back into game, get down the right end of the field and take our chances.”
© Agence France-Presse
Photo: CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP