Welsh stick fires up England's Foden
England fullback Ben Foden is relishing the build-up to this year’s “crunch” Six Nations match against Wales at Twickenham on Saturday.
The Northampton star added fuel to an always fiery encounter before last year’s corresponding match in Cardiff when he proclaimed in a newspaper column: “We are England, we are the big country, we are going to put these guys in their place.”
England did win at the Millennium Stadium to set up a Six Nations title-winning season but Foden’s remarks have not been forgotten by Wales fans, as can be seen from glancing at his Twitter page.
“I’m obviously not their favourite person after last year’s comments,” Foden said Wednesday.
“Have you been on my Twitter page? With social media nowadays it makes us that much more accessible and the Welsh make their views very forward and blunt.
“It’s good that people can get very patriotic about it. The build-up to last year’s game was brilliant. I loved all that.
“The hype surrounding the game made it that more dramatic.
“Obviously, England managed to get a victory so it was all pats on the back and high fives after the game.
“This year I’m sure there’ll be a lot of hostility between the two sides. Being the crunch game it should make for an interesting spectacle.”
Far more concerning for Foden is making sure he does not repeat the mistakes that helped Italy score two tries in Rome last weekend.
England fought back to win 19-15 and, like Wales, have a played two, won two record in this season’s tournament but Foden is keen to make amends, especially for the intercepted pass that led to Italy’s second try, at Twickenham.
“I didn’t have my best game in Italy. It took quite a bit of time to get over it because I went home and watched the video,” Foden said.
“Hopefully I can make up for that.”
Wales may have one just once at Twickenham since 1988 but the World Cup semi-finalists will start favourites at the weekend following wins over both Ireland and Scotland.
Warren Gatland’s men have run in six tries so far this Six Nations while England, under interim coach Stuart Lancaster, have just two to show for 180 minutes of effort – and both of those, one against Scotland and one against Italy, were scored by Charlie Hodgson following charge-downs by the fly-half.
However, Foden was adamant England’s misfiring back division could match Wales in the ball-playing stakes.
“We will definitely be looking to take it to them at the weekend,” he said.
“We want to expose them and challenge them defensively, and we’re confident that our defence can shut them down. We know they are big boys but we’ll just have to tackle them low.
“Owen Farrell at inside centre gives us another ball-player who can create things.
“We want to play a wide game but the elements haven’t really permitted that. In the first two fixtures and we haven’t really showed our hand.”
“We’re confident we can go and win the title. “We’ve got three very tough fixtures coming up and this is probably the biggest test.
“Wales must be considered one of the top three or four teams in the world,” Foden insisted.
“It is a big, crunch game. I think both teams will see it that way.”
This is England’s first home match of the tournament and Foden said: “We want Twickenham to become a fortress. We’ll all be massively up for the game and hopefully we’ll see another English victory.”
AFP
