Owen Farrell insisted England’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final win over Australia was ‘low-key’ in his post-match debrief.
Farrell has been a key part of England’s resurgence under coach Eddie Jones, who first appointed him as one of the vice-captains back in 2016.
The fly-half took over the captaincy last year, initially in Dylan Hartley’s absence, then as co-captain with the hooker, but is now the fully-fledged leader of the team.
And he was quick to urge his charges that they must be ready to lift their performance beyond the one that earned them a 40-16 victory over Australia on Saturday.
‘Brilliant performance lads. Brilliant performance,’ he said in a huddle on the pitch after the game.
‘We are now building. We are building into the rest of this tournament.
‘It’s low-key this. Low key. We scored 40 points!
‘Don’t let it take anything out of you because it was a brilliant performance and it’s coming again next week.
‘It’s coming again and it’s going to be even better.
‘There’s still loads for us to learn from that game but we’re going one up next week.
? SOUND ON ?
“It was a brilliant performance and it’s coming again next week.”
Captain @owen_faz delivers a passionate team-talk on the pitch after @englandrugby secured their place in the World Cup semi-finals ????????#CarryThemHome?#RWC2019 #ITVRugby pic.twitter.com/M38XRqP0Ez
— ITV Rugby (@ITVRugby) October 19, 2019
‘It’s a great performance.’
Farrell has been playing inside centre with George Ford at fly-half during the tournament but coach Eddie Jones dropped the Leicester fly-half to bring in Henry Slade at outside centre for the clash with Australia.
And Jones said afterwards that he felt vindicated by the change because of the way it allowed him to control the game.
‘Without trying to be too clever, that’s how we thought the game would go,’ Jones said.
‘[We thought] the first 30 or 40 [minutes] would be really physical with a lot of defence and Owen is definitely our best defensive 10.
‘Then we thought the second half would be more open and George Ford came on and was absolutely brilliant for us.’
