Chris Robshaw interview: Red Rose captain feeds off new belief in England fans

With a home World Cup just round the corner, the red rose captain tells Jack de Menezes he feels inspired by March’s breathless win over France

England captain Chris Robshaw

If one person in the 82,000 who filled Twickenham six weeks ago predicted that England’s Six Nations campaign would finish with a 55-35 win over France, you would have taken their ale away, handed over a glass of water and considered booking them a taxi ride home. The crowd left that day more than satisfied after seeing 12 tries and a new belief that England might just have a say in the latter stages of the World Cup.

The world’s best will arrive here in September, when Chris Robshaw will lead a side that has grown under the guidance of the head coach, Stuart Lancaster, for nearly four years now. While England just missed out on the Six Nations, Robshaw still has positive memories from the victory over France, as he tells The Independent in an exclusive interview.

“The day was really set up for it and with our 26 points that we had to go out and win by, it was extremely exciting and we had to change slightly,” says Robshaw when we met at the Brands Hatch race circuit.

“Then Ben Youngs scored in the first two minutes and all of a sudden the crowd, who I think thought ‘oh it’s going to be tough to do this’, thought ‘this is on’ and that excitement went both ways.

England captain Chris Robshaw (GETTY IMAGES)

“I think that’s the loudest I’ve ever heard Twickenham,” added the Harlequins flanker. “There was an excitement and an energy that both sides fed off and both sides wanted to play their part in the game.”

England have just three warm-up matches before the hosts raise the curtain on the World Cup in the form of the Pool A match against Fiji on 18 September. Two of those matches come against France – again – but the 28-year-old feels that England will already hold an advantage.

“There’s going to be nerves when we get there, but it’s extremely exciting as well,” he said. “As you know, we’ve got to interact with a lot of people who know about rugby in the country at the moment. They want to be involved in it and as players we feed off that energy, so hopefully we can feed off each other and really inspire each other.

Robshaw hopes to feed off the crowd's energy at this year's World Cup

“As players we represent them and they represent us, and with Stuart [Lancaster] coming in there’s a real unity. He’s really created that kind of environment. It definitely inspires you. As soon as you get off the bus you go through the fans and see the flags, the picnics, the beer tents and it’s all white shirts everywhere and it gets the guys going.”

France captain Thierry Dusautoir soon joined us, and the Toulouse flanker cast his mind back to that game in March, when, he believes, the ultimate winner was neither side.

“It was a special moment, a special time and I think the winner of the game was rugby,” says Dusautoir. “Everyone enjoyed it and I think it’s really important because when you are in the competition, you think only about the victory, but sometimes there is something nicer than it.”

England captain Chris Robshaw (Andrew Fosker/Seconds Left/REX)

When the two meet at Twickenham on 15 August in the first of two warm-up matches, it will see this rivalry reach its centenary match, and Dusautoir is confident that the French can challenge for top honours just like in 2011.

“We’re happy, because at the end of the day we are here to play this World Cup,” he says. “It’s true the last few years were not so good for the French team. We can win against the best, but we can lose against the worst. We don’t have this consistency so we’re going to be focused on it to do our best, and we want to win.”

France captain Thierry Dusautoir

But does Robshaw believe England can win the World Cup? “We’ll see,” he says with a smirk. We will indeed.

The BMW Sweet Chariots are travelling the UK in search of the nation’s most passionate singers. Visit www.BMW.co.uk/Chariots to see all the entries.