Stuart Lancaster standing© Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

Owen Farrell claims coach Stuart Lancaster has the respect of his England players after building a culture that has united them.

The coach's position has come under scrutiny since his team twice threw away 10-point leads in the second half against Wales last weekend, and Lancaster has said he will take responsibility if his team lose to Australia on Saturday, a result which would prompt an early World Cup exit.

Elimination at Twickenham would make England the worst-performing host nation in World Cup history by failing to qualify for the quarterfinals, but Farrell insisted Lancaster has proven himself a great leader. "We've got massive respect for Stuart," he said.

"He did things in the right way from the start. He laid some solid foundations and got a culture that means a lot to us.

"That makes us want to play for each other and want to fight for each other. On top of that he's brought a lot back about what the shirt means for us.

"Everyone's proud to be English and play for England and this team, for the country, their families and friends.

"There's a lot of history in this shirt and we've got to make sure we do that justice."

Lancaster dredged England out of the doldrums after a terrible 2011 World Cup campaign punctuated by ill-discipline and poor form.

Farrell believes the England squad still owe Lancaster a great debt for reinstalling high levels of humility among the nation's top stars and has vowed to "fight for what we have here", to protect Lancaster's tenure and keep England's World Cup dream alive.

And the fly-half branded barbs from former England captain Will Carling, about the players being treated like 'schoolboys', as "irrelevant". 

© David Rogers/Getty Images

"I don't get how they [pundits] comment like that, how they think they know what goes on inside this camp," said Farrell.

"All we know is what goes on in here and that's all we concentrate on. It doesn't matter what people say on the outside. It's irrelevant to us.

"It's easy to be negative, especially after a loss. To actually watch the game and study it and to come up with an actual opinion of it, that's harder to do.

"So a lot of people just jump on the negative side of things, and throw in comments that don't mean anything.

"It's all about winning this weekend [for us], building a performance to put us in the place to win this game -- if not we're out of this tournament.

"We've got to fight for what we have here, which is important to us. The only way to do that is to prepare the best we can and put us in the best place we can be.

"It's definitely the game of our lives."

The Press Association contributed to this report