World Cup pressure will be 'chasing New Zealand down the street', insists England coach Eddie Jones

Will Macpherson22 October 2019

As they chase an unprecedented World Cup ‘threepeat’, New Zealand will have “pressure chasing them down the street”, according to England head coach Eddie Jones.

The Australian heaped praise on the “greatest sports team in sports history” on Sunday, but ramped up the pressure on Steve Hansen’s side today, saying that the busiest person in the All Blacks’ camp ahead of Saturday’s World Cup semi-final will be Gilbert Enoka, their mental skills coach.

It is Jones’s belief that the only people who believe England can beat the All Blacks are his own team.

“We don’t have any pressure,” he said. “No one thinks we can win. There are 120 million Japanese people out there whose second team are the All Blacks so there’s no pressure on us.

"We’ve just got to have a great week, train hard and enjoy this great opportunity we’ve got, whereas they’ve got to be thinking about how they’re looking for their third World Cup.

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“That brings some pressure. I don’t think they [the All Blacks] are vulnerable, but pressure is a real thing. The busiest bloke in Tokyo this week will be Gilbert Enoka, the mental skills coach.

“They have to deal with all this pressure of winning the World Cup three times and it is, potentially, the last game for their greatest coach and their greatest captain [Kieran Read] and they will be thinking about those things.

“Those thoughts go through your head. It is always harder to defend a World Cup and they will be thinking about that and, therefore, there is pressure."

Jones added that the 2017 Lions tour to New Zealand, which was drawn 1-1, had demystified the All Blacks for his team.

“Our guys have experienced it,” he said. “Seventeen (it is actually 13, although Billy Vunipola and Ben Youngs withdrew before the tour) of our players went on the Lions tour. They went down there, they played in their back yard.

“They know they’re human. They bleed, they drop balls, they miss tackles, like every other player. It’s our job to take the time and space away so that we put them under pressure.

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"New Zealand talk about walking towards pressure. Well, this week, the pressure is going to be chasing them down the street. That’s the reality of it, that’s how we’re approaching it.

"We’ve got nothing to lose, that’s the exciting thing for us. We can just go out there and play our game. If we’re good enough, we’ll win. If we’re not good enough, we’ve done our best.”

Jones also took a swipe at New Zealand’s rugby media for not asking difficult questions of the All Blacks, describing them as “fans with keyboards”.

By stark contrast, he said that his team faced “unusual circumstances” “and a “complex landscape” with so much media scrutiny.

“You look, one week ago, I was going to get sacked, Owen [Farrell, the captain, sat to his right] couldn’t kick, someone wrote there’d be blood on the walls of Twickenham,” he said.

“Now we are in a semi-final and have a chance of going through and we are just excited about it.”

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