Joe Marler aims to keep a clear head amid the Rugby World Cup hype

Joe Marler will not let the emotion of being a key member of England’s World Cup team cloud his thinking in the build-up to Friday’s opening match.

Marler has fought off tough competition from Mako Vunipola, Alex Corbisiero and Matt Mullan to make himself England’s No1 loose-head prop and he will be under pressure to produce a stable platform in the scrums against Fiji.

That responsibility is dominating Marler’s thinking and he is certain the squad will keep calm despite the expectation surrounding them in the build-up to kick-off at Twickenham.

The Harlequins prop said: “It’s important the boys don’t peak too early and the coaches deal with that really well. There won’t be a player in the squad who won’t be up for Friday night and it’s just about containing it.

“It is a different week in terms of the emotion of being involved in a home World Cup. It’s new for me and a lot of the players but we are making it business as usual in terms of our preparation work. I will be concentrating on my job in the build up to the game and there is always a focus on the scrum because I am a front rower.”

Marler has a dry sense of humour which helps him deal with the pressure that is heaped upon the players in the final days before a Test.

With 32 caps he ranks as one of the experienced heads but at 25 years old does not want to dwell on that fact.

He said: “It would scare me to think about that. I just try to get on with it now. When I’m old and decrepit and can’t move, I’ll look back and think: ‘Christ, that flew by; that was a good laugh’. If I think about it too much I’ll get, ‘you’re making me think about it now and it’s doing my head in…’”

Fiji have been thinking about what Friday night will be like in front of 82,500 fans. Coach John McKee has explained how he has tried to replicate the Twickenham atmosphere in training.

“We had a little bit of a strategy earlier in the campaign in Fiji, we had a PA system playing crowd noise and the sounds from Twickenham,” said McKee.

“They took it off some of the footage. It was good in those sessions — it affected the intensity of our training.”