England vs South Africa: Billy Vunipola tells Springboks to ‘bring it on’ after promise to ‘fight fire with fire’

Billy Vunipola told the Springboks to “bring it on” after they stated their desire to “fight fire with fire” in an effort to stop England from winning Saturday’s Rugby World Cup final.

England will take on the Springboks in a repeat of the 2007 showpiece match, though this side stands for something far different to what the South Africa were able to overcome 12 years ago.

Their physically dominant performance over New Zealand in last weekend’s semi-final sent out a big statement to their final opponents, and caused Springboks lock Lood de Jager to say that his team will need to establish their own dominance following their win over Wales.

“They’re definitely favourites,” De Jager said of England. “If you beat the All Blacks by 12 points, you’re going to be the favourite in most games. The way they beat them was comprehensive so they are the favourites, but we have a foot in the door and anything can happen.

“It’s going to be very physical. The only way we know is fighting fire with fire. We base our game on physicality and they’re a very physical side at the moment. It’s going to be the team that dominates the gainline that wins the game.”

But Vunipola, who has been part of a formidable back-row unit with Tom Curry and Sam Underhill that have set the tone for England’s so far unstoppable power game, welcomed the challenge from the South Africa camp.

“South Africa are a similar threat to New Zealand and as you saw on Sunday they are very big people, but then again we have a few big blokes on our team,” Vunipola said on Tuesday. “They have already come out and said they want to fight fire with fire and I guess we return it by saying bring it on.

“It is a final, and it’s one of those things you have to front up to and it’s one of their biggest assets, bit it’s something we have been working on. Like Eddie [Jones] has mentioned they have many different threats and one is their forward pack.

“When coaches throw words like brutality at you, you kind of have to back it up. We have been challenged again to bring the same intensity this weekend.

“They have some big players on their team. None more so probably than their second rowers and Duane [Vermeulen], those guys are great players and it is a challenge for us up front to give people like Elliot [Daly] and everyone else around him that time and space with the ball to do what they do.”

England seemed to dominate every collision against the All Blacks in what proved to be one of the great all-time World Cup performances, led by the supremely combative Underhill and Curry.

With ball-carriers such as Vunipola, his brother Mako and Manu Tuilagi complementing the two flankers’ phenomenal defensive effort, the players appear to be spurring each other on collision after collision, which could help them to make the difference this weekend against a South African side that also relishes that physical confrontation.

“It's something that you probably can't measure, but I think the best way to explain it is that it's quite contagious,” Vunipola added. “It shows everyone it can be done, so everyone else tries to follow in the slipstreams of Underhill, Curry, Maro [Itoje].

“It's very easy when you see it. A lot of people talk about it and it's easy to sit here and say we want to be brutal, but you have to back those words up and those guys are probably the best at leading that area.”