Billy Vunipola: Return of crowds will spur players 'like schoolboys showing off to girls in PE lessons'
Billy Vunipola has weighed in to the debate over Test rugby’s entertainment value, promising that the return of crowds will spur players to new heights like schoolboys showing off to girls in PE lessons.
Vunipola is poised to win his 56th cap on Sunday in the Autumn Nations Cup final against France after being retained in a 27-man England squad that will be trimmed on Friday.
It is yet to be confirmed when he and fellow Saracens, such as captain Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje, will reappear for another fixture given the uncertainty over when the Championship season will begin.
Looking forward to “a few weeks off” in any event, Vunipola acknowledged that recent games may have been low on excitement, but cited the 2019 World Cup as a gauge of the sport’s potential to attract new fans.
“Obviously [any law changes are] way above my pay grade,” said the 28-year-old. “But I do watch a lot of rugby and sometimes it can be a bit tough to keep your focus, especially when you’ve got your phone and iPad and everything around you. You’re battling with other sports as well for new fans’ attention. Like Eddie [Jones, England coach] has said, we had a World Cup that was unbelievable. We had as many viewers in terms of our social interactions and TV than we’ve had previously. The game can’t have changed within that short time span.
“Teams at the moment are prioritising winning and prioritising looking after themselves, especially with what we’re going through with Covid. Everyone needs to look after themselves. We’ll come out of it and teams will start playing that free-running rugby again.
“Also, having fans there is massive because they add to the atmosphere. When people are there, we want to entertain them. It’s a bit like when you were younger and the girls used to turn up to PE and you always wanted to show off. It is a bit similar to that and hopefully we can get the fans backs soon.”
England are hot favourites to beat France, and avenge their defeat at the start of this year’s Six Nations, because Les Bleus will be without front-line players.
Given they were also fancied to beat South Africa last November before going down 32-12 in Yokohama, both wing Anthony Watson and defence coach John Mitchell joined Vunipola in targeting a more assured performance.
“We have to deal with a similar sort of pressure in that we’re going into this game as favourites – as we were in the Japan final,” Vunipola said. “Obviously we didn’t deal with that very well. We just turned up. It starts tomorrow in our big training session. How we turn up and how we train is massive because we take that into the weekend.”
