- England captain Moody on the road to recovery
- Focus is to train and play at the weekend – Moody
With just 62 minutes of Test match rugby under his belt this year, England skipper Lewis Moody has endured a difficult few months. But after the untimely set-back against Wales at Twickenham on August 6, where he injured his knee, the Bath flanker is on the road to recovery and has the Rugby World Cup opener against Argentina in his sights on September 10.
“The focus is still to train next week and play at the weekend,” he said. “But I’ll be guided by the physios. It was probably good to have a bit of a rest on the flight over to let the body do its own healing because you can try and push it too hard, but Argentina is still the goal.”
England were met by hoards of loyal fans when they arrived in Auckland in the small hours of the morning, and Moody says that seeing the cheering supporters was the ideal tonic after the long haul flight.
He added: “It was great, I don’t think anyone expected it. A lot of the guys haven’t been to New Zealand before so it was a nice wake up call. We were greeted by a Maori dance and England fans, it was a really nice welcome.”
And after watching England lose to Wales in Cardiff and win against Ireland in Dublin from the sidelines, Moody is well placed to pass judgement on the team's performances, and said: “We went into the Ireland game with a lot of frustrations after the Welsh match, so the intensity was fantastic. We’re fully aware of the mistakes that we made but the performance on the whole was a step in the right direction.”
