Ben Youngs says England will go for the throat against New Zealand

Front foot | Ben Youngs, in training on Tuesday
David Rogers/Getty Images
Will Macpherson7 November 2018

England have an attacking, aggressive gameplan as they bid to suffocate New Zealand’s free-flowing game in the first meeting of the two teams for four years at Twickenham on Saturday.

Scrum-half Ben Youngs said England hoped to make the world champions feel “claustrophobic” and that hoping to “contain” them would be ruinous.

“We looked at some of the bits from the Rugby Championship where we felt the defences aren’t as aggressive or creating as much pressure as we would like,” Youngs said. “A lot of what we do is create that claustrophobic feeling.

“One thing about the All Blacks is that you are going to have to score tries. I don’t like the word ‘containing’ because it implies we will go out there and see what they have got. That is one thing we definitely don’t want to do because we know what they are capable of.

“It is about going out there and really taking the game to them, whether that is without the ball and cutting down their time and space, or with the ball, trying to go through phases.”

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Eddie Jones last night opted, where possible, to stick with the players who won the opening game of their autumn international series, as he shaved his squad from 35 to 25.

Tom Curry is out with an ankle injury and has been replaced by Sam Underhill, while Courtney Lawes and Manu Tuilagi are in contention after injury. Brad Shields, after a performance of promise against the Springboks, will feature but faces a battle to retain his starting spot. Lawes or Maro Itoje could move to blindside to beef up England, while defence coach Steve Borthwick says Underhill, Zach Mercer and Mark Wilson are options at openside.

Shields, the former Hurricanes captain and New Zealand Under-20 who until last year harboured hopes of playing for the All Blacks, knows Saturday’s opposition better than most and will be a central figure whether he starts or not. When returning to Wellington one last time before moving to Wasps, he stayed with Beauden Barrett and hid an England training top from the tour of South Africa in his drawer as a prank.

Shields’s bat is straighter this week, especially when asked about what must be a peculiar occasion. His view is that until his selection is confirmed, the idea of facing the Haka and sledges from his old mates is not worth considering. Instead, he has been passing on intelligence on the All Blacks, with his view being that England need a lung-busting 80-minute performance to ensure they are not outlasted by the visitors.

“Brad’s knowledge is really important,” said Youngs. “He can tell us what the guys he has played with don’t particularly like and the traits they have in their game. We don’t just want to contain the All Blacks, we want to throw our gameplan at them.”

Youngs took particular note of Shields’s observation that Barrett is New Zealand’s most regular ball-carrier. Overall, though, Shields’s message to England is that there is no magic formula to New Zealand’s excellence.

“That’s it: it’s rugby played very well,” said Shields. “If you do the basics very well, which they do, if you can make the most of your opportunities, then you will come away with a lot of wins.”

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