England warn against 'dumb rugby' as players are told to come to their senses or pack their bags for home

England will need to improve against Fiji or they will be on the next flight home. Photo: David Ramos/World Rugby

Danny Care said England will fly home from the World Cup if they don't revive their ideas, while players were warned they couldn't get away with «dumb rugby» in the quarter-final against Fiji.

England were indebted to 36-year-old Care in Saturday's 18-17 win over Samoa as he continued his scoring in the 73rd minute with a dying tackle from Neria Fomai to prevent another loss to Pacific. Island confrontation.

Quarter-final opponents Fiji claimed England's scalp for the first time in a 30-22 win at Twickenham in August, which Care said was a «line in the sand» for the team. Steve Borthwick's men have since responded by winning all four of their Group D games, but Care are keenly aware that a significant step forward is required for their quarter-final in Marseille on Sunday.

He said: “I hope the fans will have faith in us.” that we will become better, we must be, otherwise we will end up on a plane home.”

Danny Care claims England's victory. Photo: Mike Egerton/PA.

The message was echoed by second row Maro Itoje, who said England needed to develop the right mentality to avoid playing «dumb rugby».

“We know we have to play the right way,” Itoje said. “We have to play well against Fiji, we have to beat Fiji. If we're not smart, if we're not doing it, it's a coin flip. We leave it to chance.

“We want to play smart rugby, we don't want to play dumb rugby and play to our strengths, we want to play to our strengths. But everything always starts with thinking. We need to be aware of this. Needless to say, this was not the performance we wanted. We were probably a little off in a number of areas.

“But that being said, we found a way to win – and I think maybe a year ago, a couple of months ago, we probably wouldn’t have found a way to win. We hope and aim that this performance will prepare us for what awaits us next week.”

The players spent Sunday in Lille analyzing their individual performances while watching the game. Before they fly to Marseille, there will be a group review at which, according to Itoje, the hard truths will be laid out.

“We'll probably start these conversations among ourselves before we have a full team meeting so everyone comes in with ideas and starts matching each other individually,” Itoje said. “Then we will have a team meeting. And it's usually led by Steve. He will study the facts. Sometimes there is a narrative and feelings, but it will tell the facts of the game, what happened and why it happened.

“It's an interactive process and players give input if they have feelings about certain things and then we acknowledge what happened and understand the reasons. It has to be fair, no doubt about it. We've had some pretty awkward and difficult conversations and meetings as a team over the last three or four months. And they are necessary if you want to move forward. It's not about being cool. We need to get to the point where if there is a problem, if there is something that needs to be fixed, we need to fix it.»

Steve Borthwick (left) will lay out some truths. Photo: Dan Mullan/Getty Images

A similar development occurred a few days after the historic defeat to Fiji, England's first ever defeat by a developing country. This led to some painful discussions, which Itoje said «gave impetus» to the team and which Care credited with contributing to their 100 percent result in France.

“We realized that this is not us, this is not what we want to be as a team,” Care said. “We let ourselves down, we let a lot of people down with our performance. We took it personally, it was our fault as players, so we wore it, came to France, worked hard on and off the field to fix it and started playing better rugby. I think it was probably a bit of a line in the sand, once we got to France things started to look up for us.”

In the meantime, Sam Underhill was called in to replace Jack. Willis, who pulled out of England's World Cup squad on Friday with a neck injury.

Underhill, who started the 2019 World Cup final, was dropped from England's training squad by Borthwick in July. However, the 27-year-old, who has suffered a series of concussions over the last couple of years, was called up ahead of alternative back row players such as Zach Mercer, Tom Willis, Alex Dombrandt and Tom Pearson.

“He's a Test match animal and is a fantastic player. It just shows the quality we have in England and we're delighted he was able to join us. He knows what it means to play well at the World Championships. He's done this before and brings a lot of experience to the table.”