England expects, declares Foden

BEN FODEN last night insisted the time has come for England to make up for seven years of underachievement by lifting the RBS 6 Nations title.

And the confident Northampton full-back admitted than anything less would be a failure.

England last won the championship in 2003, when Clive Woodward’s side geared up for their World Cup triumph by storming to the Grand Slam.

In the intervening years, England have twice plumbed the depths of fourth place. In 2008 and 2009 they finished second but last year slipped back to third.

The Rugby Football Union’s chief executive John Steele has told Martin Johnson he expects an immediate improvement, setting England the goal of finishing in the top two.

Woodward’s team were at their peak in 2003 whereas Johnson’s young squad head into this World Cup year on a steep learning curve.

But England are up to fourth in the world — the leading European nation — and Foden believes the next step will be mounting a Six Nations title challenge.

“The top two is a realistic target but as a squad we are aiming for the number one spot. Anything less would be a failure,” said Foden.

“We are a confident squad, we feel like we are going in the right direction. We performed well in the autumn and we feel the next step is to challenge for the Six Nations.

“We want to right those wrongs from the last seven years, when we haven’t been that impressive in the competition in terms of winning it. We feel like we have got our best foot forward.

“There are some tough games ahead. All teams in the competition are of a high calibre. It is a tough job but it is a realistic target.”

England’s rise up the rankings came on the back of successive victories over Australia, the second of which at Twickenham in November was a record 35-18 triumph against the Wallabies.

Although that performance infused the squad with confidence, the defeat to South Africa a fortnight later could ultimately prove more valuable.

England, still on a high from the Australia win, failed to adapt their game and were taught a brutal lesson by the powerful Springboks. They cannot afford to make that mistake in the Six Nations.

“After the performance for the second 60 minutes against New Zealand and the wins against Australia and Samoa, we were on a bit of a run and we probably took ourselves for granted a bit against South Africa,” said Foden.

“We know what we did wrong. We have learned from that experience and hopefully grown as players and as a team.

“Our mindset is to win the game first and the way we do it comes later. We would like to play in an attacking way but primarily we need to win the game.”

England are still sweating on the fitness of Leeds flanker Hendre Fourie, who is recovering from a calf strain.

Johnson is already without Lewis Moody, Tom Croft and Courtney Lawes for the clash with Wales next Friday and Mike Tindall also gave England an injury scare this week.

* London Irish prop Faan Rautenbach has been given a three-week ban for stamping on the head and shoulder of Munster flanker David Wallace.

Rautenbach was yellow-carded following the incident during Munster’s victory in the Heineken Cup clash in Limerick last Saturday.

The subsequent citing was upheld with an initial suspension of five weeks reduced by two weeks because of mitigating factors.