Thursday 10 October 2019 06:40, UK
Henry Slade has wished France "good luck" ahead of Saturday's World Cup pool decider in response to a claim by prop Emerick Setiano that "we want to kill them".
Les Bleus are still seething at their 44-8 Six Nations defeat at Twickenham in February and Setiano expressed the team's anguish in the most colourful language possible.
If the game does proceed, despite the threat of disruption from Super Typhoon Hagibis, then Slade is likely to make his first start of the World Cup, having been limited to two replacement appearances due to a significant knee injury.
"France have a lot of threats across the park - they have some dangerous guys - but so do we," Slade said.
"If they want to try and kill us then good luck because we have got some big lads. The boys are excited to put in a really good performance.
"We just want to keep momentum going. We are feeling pretty confident at the minute and rightly so.
"We have had some good performances over the last few weeks and before the tournament. We want to keep the train rolling."
Slade was England's first-choice outside centre until his knee injury wiped out his summer, forcing him to miss all four warm-up Tests.
"I definitely want to put my case forward. It has been frustrating for me to miss so much game time," he said.
