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England need to channel the frustrations they feel over the treatment of Owen Farrell when they face Ireland, says Courtney Lawes.
Farrell has been left out of the squad for the game in Dublin after World Rugby appealed against the decision to overturn his red card against Wales.
England’s captain could now miss a chunk of their World Cup pool matches.
“We can certainly tap into it a bit because it’s a big game,” vice-captain Lawes said.
“This is an interesting adversity because it’s an individual player and we’re not in the World Cup yet, so we can’t peak too early,” he added.
“You’ve got to be careful of that – checks and balances and all that kind of stuff. But we can certainly tap into it.”
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell called the controversy over son Owen’s current disciplinary process a “circus” that is “absolutely disgusting” with the appeal causing a disruption to England’s preparation this week.
Farrell’s Ireland won the Grand Slam this year and reached number one in the World Rugby rankings – a feat they also achieved before the 2019 World Cup.
In the build-up to that tournament, fly-half Johnny Sexton said Ireland had not “peaked too soon” but they ended up losing in the quarter-finals to New Zealand – who they had beaten a year earlier.
Lawes, 34, says showcasing England’s “talent” and “hard work” in their warm-up games is more of a priority than winning them.
After facing Ireland on Saturday, England host Fiji at Twickenham on 26 August before they depart for France. They face Argentina in their opening World Cup game on 9 September in Marseille.
“We’re looking to win but the main thing for us is that we actually put our talent, effort and hard work on to the pitch,” Lawes said.
“The last 10 weeks of pre-season have been pretty gruelling and we want to show what we’ve been working on.”
England opened their World Cup warm-up campaign with a 20-9 loss in Cardiff to Wales before a 19-17 win in the rematch at Twickenham, with Lawes returning to the side in the latter after he made only one brief substitute appearance in the Six Nations due to injury.
“That’s been the frustrating thing for us in the last two games – we just haven’t performed as well as we know we can,” he said.
“We lost a game and went close to losing another. At some point it will click for us and that’s when people will see the amount of hard work we’ve put in.”
England also face Japan, Chile and Samoa in their World Cup pool.
