Nick Purewal looks ahead to England V Argentina as World Cup kicks off
Nick Purewal looks ahead to England V Argentina as World Cup kicks off
Transcript
00:00 So this is the Stade Vélodrome where England will start their
00:03 Rugby World Cup 2023 Pool D campaign tomorrow when they take on Argentina
00:08 a 9pm kickoff in France. The stadium has been rebuilt several years ago
00:15 so it's vastly different from the arena that
00:19 England played in when they beat Australia here 12-10
00:23 in a 2007 World Cup quarterfinal. It's a fantastic arena for football
00:29 obviously Olympique de Marseille have a fantastic football team
00:32 the venue is phenomenal, the stage is completely set
00:35 England have gone through their final preparations today so everything's ready
00:39 for them. Alex Mitchell will make his World Cup
00:42 debut. A few months ago he was on holiday in
00:44 Croatia thinking that he wouldn't have any kind of chance of making the World
00:48 Cup and now he starts at Scrum Heart for
00:50 England against the Pumas. That's a massive
00:54 massive selection from Steve Porthwick because Mitchell
00:57 and Northampton, Scrum Heart for Leapfrog, Danny Kerr
01:00 and Ben Youngs. Ben Youngs is England's most capped men's Test
01:05 rugby player and Danny Kerr is a long-term
01:10 90 cap veteran of the Test scene so Alex Mitchell has six caps, he'll win his
01:14 seventh cap this weekend so that's a massive leap of faith in many
01:18 ways but Mitchell has been the best performing nine
01:21 for England across this warm-up period and he
01:24 showed enough against Fiji and has really really impressed in training so
01:27 now he gets his opportunity. This is a massive massive game for England
01:32 after three defeats and four games in August
01:35 it is high time, it's long overdue for England to get the game together.
01:38 Mitchell can give them the kind of speed of ball and quality of service they need
01:42 from the breakdown but the fours need to pull it together
01:44 because it's a massive challenge to take on Argentina.
01:47 Interesting to see a new centre partnership of Manu Telangi and
01:50 Joe Marchant, if they can dovetail well and complement each other
01:54 that could be exciting. We've got George Ford at fly half. The biggest thing for
01:57 England now however though is that Steve Borthwick's game plan has
02:00 got to come together. It's make or break this weekend so let's
02:03 see what happens.