Warburton ready to lead his country into battle

London: When England won the World Cup in Australia in 2003, Sam Warburton was among those cheering them on from the United Kingdom.

They will not be receiving his support this year and on Saturday he will be looking to disrupt their preparations by leading Wales to victory at Twickenham in the first of two warm-up matches between the rivals this month.

Warburton, who will captain Wales this weekend in the absence of the injured Matthew Rees, was born and bred in Cardiff but his father, Jeremy, comes from London and a large contingent of his relatives live in the north of England.

"My grandmother has a broad Yorkshire accent," said the flanker, who will celebrate his 23rd birthday during the World Cup. "Although I never thought about making myself available for England, I did support them during the 2003 World Cup.

"I am not like a lot of other Welshmen who have an anti-English attitude, even if my thoughts this week are about beating them on Saturday."

Record defeats

Wales arranged friendlies against England before the 2003 and 2007 World Cups and were left to rue the decision each time after record defeats.

They have this year prepared for the warm-ups by testing their tolerance to the cold during two training camps in Poland last month.

"It was a tough few weeks," said Warburton, whose only other experience of leading Wales was against the Barbarians in June.

"The first concentrated on fitness and conditioning and the second had more of an emphasis on rugby. We know we got a lot out of them because when we had our fitness results this morning, there were 21 personal bests, with a number of players smashing their old records.

"Everyone mentions what happened at Twickenham before the last World Cup, but we are not about looking backwards.

"We focus on the positive and we are confident we can put in a good performance."