Owen Farrell is paying no attention to the critics after his surprise inclusion in England's starting XV for Saturday's crunch Rugby World Cup Pool A match against Wales.
With Jonathan Joseph ruled out of the Twickenham clash with a chest injury, head coach Stuart Lancaster opted to re-jig his backline from the team that beat Fiji 35-11 in England’s opener.
That included a recall for Farrell at fly-half in place of George Ford, with rugby league convert Sam Burgess partnering Brad Barritt at centre.
The decision to drop Ford has raised plenty of eyebrows, but Farrell is only concerned about the task at hand.
"People can say what they want. It's the people inside the camp that count to me, the people around me," he said.
"External factors don't matter to us. We go into the game looking forward to it. It's a massive challenge and everybody is excited about it.
"All I am trying to do is to do my best for the team. That's what I have been doing all summer, [we have been] trying to push each other as much as we can to try and be the best players that we can be.
"That's what I try and do every week so it is what it is, and I have got this opportunity."
Wales, who were beaten 21-16 by England in the Six Nations earlier this year, face their first genuine test having routed Uruguay 54-9 in their first Pool A clash.
Coach Warren Gatland - who earlier this week defended a decision to draft unselected players into a training session following a warning from World Rugby - stated that Wales would not specifically target Burgess despite his lack of union experience.
Centre Scott Williams was one player happy to come up against Burgess when he said that defending against the Bath star was easier than Joseph.
When told of Williams assessment Burgess seemingly cheekily stoked the fires by asking "who's that?" but fly-half Dan Biggar had no interest of entering a war of words and says that every England player poses a threat.
"I'm not going to comment on that [Burgess' comment]," he said. "It's up to him what he wants to say.
"Both Ford and Farrell are excellent players. Both have played against us well before. Owen is a very good all round player and very rarely does he miss from the tee.
"England are very lucky to have two players of that quality. I'm sure it was a long, hard discussion and we'll look ahead to playing against Owen."