Danny Care insists England will resume their World Cup quest armed with inspiration from Europe’s stirring Ryder Cup victory.
Care was among four England players to send a good luck message to Luke Donald’s team from a golf course in Le Touquet, where Steve Borthwick’s squad are based ahead of the final Pool D game against Samoa.
Europe emerged 16½-11½ winners against the United States on Sunday and for Care one aspect in particular stood out about their performance.
“Team spirit is the reason the best teams are successful,” the veteran Harlequins scrum-half said.
“I don’t know many environments where you wouldn’t have a good team spirit and the team ends up winning a tournament or a league or a trophy at the end of it.
“I was an outsider watching the Ryder Cup but they looked more aligned and close than the American team did.
“You could see it, you could feel it just watching on the screens. You could see how much it meant to them. That’s definitely something we’re trying to harness – how much it means to us.
“Europe hung in together, fought for everything. Those little half points that they saved. We can definitely take some inspiration from those lads.
“The golf they played was unbelievable. We haven’t shown much of that in Le Touquet, some of our lads!”
England have forged their own winning path so far in the World Cup, polishing off Argentina, Japan and Chile with plenty to spare.
Even with Samoa left to play they have qualified for the quarter-finals as group winners to continue an impressive revival since losing three of their four warm-up Tests in August.
“Sometimes you have to go through some bad stuff to get to the good stuff,” Care said.
“Maybe our bad stuff was those warm-up games, to get us to look at ourselves and go ‘Right, we need to pull together a little bit’. It’s going to take everyone to win this.”
England play Samoa in Lille on Saturday, with Borthwick naming his starting XV on Thursday evening.
