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'I don't quite have a Stephen Donald story'
By Online Editors
Ben Spencer was feeding his children at home when he took a phone-call that could change the Saracens scrum-half’s life. A week after watching England demolish semi-final opponents New Zealand on television, Spencer will be on the bench in a World Cup final.
He admits it has been “a crazy few days” after answering England’s World Cup call when Willi Heinz was ruled out of the tournament due to a hamstring injury. Spencer will provide cover for Ben Youngs against South Africa in Yokohama on Saturday when England aim to become world champions for a second time.
“It’s been a crazy few days, and a brilliant few days. I have loved getting back in with the squad,” he said. “I don’t quite have a Stephen Donald story (the former New Zealand fly-half who was called up from holiday and then kicked a match-winning penalty in the 2011 final), you know, on a boat, fishing.
“I was just at home, feeding the kids, then got the phone call (from England’s team manager). They are a bit too young to understand, but my partner was thrilled. They actually got here (to Japan) this morning. It’s an exciting week for all of us.
“I trained all week with Saracens, and then we were due to play Leicester on the Sunday. I got the call on Saturday afternoon and then was on a flight Sunday morning, and arrived Monday morning. When I got the call it was a bit of ‘right, let’s get ready for a World Cup final’.”
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Spencer, 27, made his England on debut on tour against South Africa in 2018 and was a key performer as Saracens were crowned English and European champions last season. He narrowly missed out on World Cup squad selection but now has a dream opportunity to be involved in England’s latest bid for global glory.
“The good thing was that I had spent quite a lot of time with the squad in pre-season, so I know what’s going on and I’m not too out of the loop,” he added. “It’s not been too difficult to get up to speed, and Benny and Willi have helped me out with what is going on this weekend. It’s been good.
“In terms of the jet-lag I’ve actually been okay. The first night was tough, but I seem to be in the swing of things now. I think they (England) have been brilliant, every week the team has got better and you saw that against New Zealand.
“I mentioned before the previous games, what I have taken from them is a constant want to get better from the squad, to want to improve week in, week out. It’s hugely exciting. It is every kid’s dream to play in a World Cup final, and for me to be out here and hopefully on Saturday, yeah, it’s amazing.
“I can’t say enough about the lads this week and how they have welcomed me into the squad and made me feel part of the squad. There is huge excitement about this weekend. The lads just can’t wait to get out there and get stuck in.”
- Press Association
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Latest Comments
Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
Go to commentsYou always get idiots who go overboard. What else is new? I ignore them. Why bother?
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