for a squad place in Japan next month.
But as the England squad return from their hot weather training camp in Treviso where they suffered their
own problems – Brad Shields is facing a serious race against time to recover from a foot injury to make the
cut – Daly believes England have to treat these final four matches before the World Cup just like any other
if they are to get something out of them.
“Everyone at the moment is actually really looking forward to these games to show what we can do and try
and get that team cohesion we have been looking at in the last sort of three, four weeks of training
together,” said Daly, who spent a single day with new club Saracens before joining up with Eddie Jones’s
squad.
“If you start thinking about not getting injured, not doing that, then that is when you tend to do get injured,
stuff doesn’t seem to go as you would wish. But I think the way we are looking at these games is to really
improve before the World Cup and put our best foot forward.
“It will definitely have the same effect. Every time we play Wales it is a brilliant atmosphere, especially
playing them home and away you are always going to get good support and it is always a great crowd vibe
there and it is always a great game. I have played Wales in end-of-season games, sort of June time before, so
I don’t think it will be different to when we are playing them in Six Nations.
“It’s a Test match at the end of the day so intensity will be brought. Definitely, it will be similar to a Six
Nations game. It’s an international game. You can’t be talking about not going for those games, especially as
there is only four games before the World Cup starts.”
It has raised an interesting debate over what is the better World Cup preparation. The Southern
Hemisphere giants are currently competing in a slimline Rugby Championship, while the Pacific Nations
Cup is also ongoing. But there is no competitive international tournament for European teams from the end
of the Six Nations in March, meaning these World Cup warm-ups are about as good as it gets for England,
Wales and the rest.
“You’ve just got to make the best of your situation,” Jones has previously said when asked about the
differing preparations for a World Cup.
What it should allow is for England to get a good look at Argentina and Tonga, two of their Pool C
opponents, as they compete at full pelt. The Pumas pushed a makeshift All Blacks side close – keeping them
scoreless in the second half of their clash in Salta – only to miss out on their first ever victory over New
Zealand, but followed it up with a disappointing defeat in Australia.
Tonga meanwhile had to endure an atrocious mudbath in their defeat by Samoa last week, which admittedly
will have told England very little about their qualities.
But even if it offer a clear glimpse of their opponents’ World Cup plans, England so far have taken no
notice.
“We have been watching games but it’s not been discussed yet,” added Daly. “We will wait until we get
back from Treviso and then look at what the other teams in the world are doing at the moment, especially
people who are going to be in our group out in Japan. It’s hard to pick trends from one or two games, it’s
more over the entire Rugby Championship or Pacific Nations Cup.
“I will look at (Tonga) over the next couple of weeks. While we’ve been out here we’ve just been trying to
focus on what we’re doing. Obviously, having a look at a few games around the world but once we get back
to Pennyhill that’s when we will be looking at more games involving our World Cup opposition in case we
can see any trends.”