Rugby World Cup: Criticism of England captain Owen Farrell 'maddening', says Richard Wigglesworth

England's attack coach Richard Wigglesworth has jumped to the defence of fly-half Owen Farrell after the Saracens No. 10 was instrumental in Steve Borthwick's side's 30-24 quarter-final victory against Fiji at the Rugby World Cup on Sunday.

The win means England will play South Africa in the semi-finals, but Farrell was booed after his name was read out on the speaker system inside the Stade Velodrome before the match.

The fly-half subsequently went on to produce a man-of-the-match performance, kicking 20 points to help book England's place in the final four of the tournament.

"He definitely doesn't have to prove anything," said Wigglesworth.

"We are lucky to have Owen. As ever, the tallest trees catch the most wind and he seems to catch a fair bit."

Farrell, who also helped guide Saracens to the Premiership title last season, did not feature in England's opening two matches at the tournament after he was banned for a high tackle on Welsh flanker Taine Basham in their World Cup warm-up clash at Twickenham back in August.

George Ford and Marcus Smith both swapped in at fly-half in his absence - Ford having a stand-out game against Argentina - before Farrell came back to take the No. 10 shirt for their clash against Chile to break England's all-time points scoring record, but some fans have raised eyebrows over his selection.

"He's proven time and time and time again and I don't understand why in England we feel the need to not celebrate that, not enjoy it, just because he's not sat in front of social media or the media lapping all that up," Wigglesworth added.

"He is incredibly serious about his career and he's an incredibly proud Englishman. He affects any team he is in and he was brilliant for us - as we knew he would be.

"That was the maddening part of any noise. We knew what was coming from him."

England will take on South Africa and will hope to exact revenge on their opponents for their agonising defeat in the 2019 World Cup final.

The Springboks defeated France on Sunday night in an epic encounter, narrowly knocking the host nation out of the tournament 29-28, with Eben Etzebeth crashing over in the 67th minute before Handre Pollard added three points from a penalty.

And while England secured a big win on Sunday night, Wigglesworth said that he and his fellow coaching staff have got straight back to work in their preparations for Saturday's clash against the Boks.

"Usually you’d be analysing one team, we would do that halfway through last week, but we had to analyse two," Wigglesworth said, admitting his team had also been watching France.

"So we will put a bit more meat on the bones in terms of that. We’ve already met and we will be meeting again.

"I’ve been sent away with a list of stuff to look at and get right so that we can give the players as much clarity as we can on areas we want to go after and what we can do.

"Then it’s about simplifying as much as we can, because the bigger the game, the more we want it to be clear for them so they can go and put their game out on the field.

"In terms of a process, it will be pretty thorough throughout the week really before we get to this point. A little bit different than normal, but one that is always enjoyable."

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