Venue: Twickenham Stadium Date: Saturday, 10 February Kick-off: 16:45 GMT |
Coverage: Listen on BBC Radio 5 Live, live text on BBC Sport website and app, watch on ITV1. |
Wales have “nothing to lose” when they play England at Twickenham on Saturday, says scrum-half Danny Care.
Warren Gatland’s inexperienced side put in a strong second-half showing in their opening defeat by Scotland in Cardiff last weekend.
Wales have not won at Twickenham in the Six Nations since 2012.
“They have some young lads full of talent coming to Twickenham to play their first game,” Care told the BBC Rugby Union Daily podcast.
“They are a young team with nothing to lose or nothing to fear. We respect them.”
England have won eight of their last 10 championship games against the Welsh.
However, Care was part of the England matchday squad which lost out on the title with defeat against Gatland’s side in 2013 in Cardiff.
A win was needed to secure an English Grand Slam, but Wales ruthlessly won 30-3 to clinch the Six Nations.
“Some of my best and worst memories have been playing against Wales,” the 37-year-old Harlequin added.
“You try to embrace it. We talked about it a bit last night, about being back in Twickenham and facing one of your fearsome longest rivals that we have massive amounts of respect for.
“This is the game you want to play in and you want your friends and family there to make them proud.
“Every time you play against Wales it is an incredible Test match and really physical and feisty.”
‘We want Twickenham to erupt’
Full-back Freddie Steward, who started England’s opening Six Nations victory over Italy, says he wants “Twickenham to erupt” on Saturday.
Since taking charge, head coach Steve Borthwick has suffered a record home defeat by France and a first ever defeat by Fiji, which was his side’s last game at Twickenham.
Despite their poor form at home – two wins from their last six games – England finished third at the World Cup in October.
“As players when you play for England you are expected to win and when you don’t win, understandably you don’t have the fans on your side and there was a bit of that in the warm-ups to the World Cup,” Steward said.
“I would never blame the fans and say they need to lift us. They do that on the back of what we do, so the responsibility is ours.
“During the World Cup when we got to the semi-final it felt like that is what it can be like. As players we want that all the time but we have to put the performances on the field to earn that.
“The fans are the heartbeat of what we do. We want Twickenham to erupt and we want it to be a place we want to go and play in front of our fans and represent them.”