“Respair” means fresh hope; a recovery from despair. The Oxford English Dictionary has two words against Respair’s inclusion: rare and obsolete. It was last used in the 14th and 15th centuries and then it was let go: unneeded. It reappeared on social media after Covid and in light of several UK Government led developments. You can get why. But, and this is the reason I bring it to your attention, it is most certainly apt when it comes to England Rugby right now. Let’s hope it is on everyone’s lips come Sunday morning.

By then, we will know just how ‘up for it’ England are. There’s been messages coming out of camp this week that things are different now; England have turned a corner. Before the Wales warm up game at Twickenham, Ben Earl was quoted as saying England “were on the edge of something”. They won that game, just, but lost Owen Farrell, their captain. They then were defeated comfortably by Ireland, and, in their final warm up game, didn’t really cause Fiji much bother. Maybe the ‘something’ Earl referenced was being really quite poor at rugby.

Come on Sam: respair! It can be used as a verb and a noun. One can do it as well as see it. We all need to join as one. No one wants to see England perform badly at the World Cup. Unless you’re Welsh… or Scottish… or Irish or Australian or Kiwi or Bok… okay, okay. A few people want to see England perform badly but really, deep down, for the sake of a better tournament, it would be wonderful if England did provide some respair. “A cheeky little bit of respair? Oh, I don’t mind if I do.” Surely respair would become resperation like despair begets desperation. Maybe resperation could be smelled? “Some reeking resperation tingled the nostrils of even the most depressed of Twickenham faithful.” Oh, the dream: that amidst this steaming pile of cankerous bile there is a future. A Mitchell snipe; Lawes folding people like cheap deckchairs; Marchant gliding past defenders as though born to do it.

And that is all we want. At this stage, we don’t really want to win it. It would be nice but this tournament is kinda gone. And I’m happy with relinquishing it. There’s a myriad of reasons for why we are where we are. The inquisition isn’t for now: now is for salvaging something. Looking to the future. Maybe it’s difficult to do that with the team we have out in France but if England can play rugby that the next generation can hang their hat on then, that’s something. Eyes up, roll the dice, ‘give it a go’ rugby. For that is where respair is born. Recovery needs stability and care, granted, but it also needs laughter and love. It needs smiles not frowns. I want England to take the wheel and make me smile again. I want to be driven to respair.

Good luck everyone. It could be quite the ride.