‘No one thinks we can win’: England rugby coach Eddie Jones says his squad feel no pressure heading into New Zealand showdown
- The quick-witted, sharp tongued coach gives a legendary press conference in Tokyo ahead of his squad’s semi-final
- Jones says his boys are relaxed heading into a game they know they are expected to lose, which they will use to their advantage
“See, there you go. No one thinks we can win. There’s 120 million Japanese people out there whose second team are the All Blacks. So there’s no pressure on us, we’re just going to have a great week, enjoy it and relax, train hard and enjoy this great opportunity. Whereas they got to be thinking about their third World Cup in a row, so that’s got to be a lot of pressure.”
While England barely broke a sweat in the pool matches before dismantling Australia 40-16 in the quarter-finals, Jones was clearly revelling in the role of the underdog. “It’s the most exciting week of the rugby calendar,” he said. “The best four teams are playing against each other and we get to play one of the greatest teams ever shooting for a three-peat, which has never been done.”
Jones, who became the first Australian-born head coach to defeat his native country when England beat the Wallabies, is no stranger to big-game pressure. He was coach of Australia in 2003 when they lost in the World Cup finals to England and was also an assistant on the victorious South African team in 2007 while leading Japan to a seminal victory at the 2015 event over those same Springboks. But while his resume is full of games on the biggest stage, his English charges are as green as it gets in big matches, particular in comparison with their much more accomplished opponents.
“In terms of pressure and struggling to handle the platform, if you look at what we have done as a team over the last four years, we have had some great wins and some significant losses. Players have learned how to work together and there is a togetherness in the team that is going to carry them through difficult periods in the game. In the semi-final there is going to be big moments in the game that will decide the match and I think we are equipped to handle those.”
Jones also acknowledged there are issues unique to the England team that have inherently made the players more mature and ready for big moments. “The England team, it's an unusual circumstance because you get so much media exposure and media pressure. Everything is scrutinised, players are scrutinised, coaches are scrutinised. We got such a complex landscape in England and the players have just stuck to the task of what we wanted to be.”
When the draw for the World Cup was announced over two years ago in Kyoto, Jones claims he instinctively knew this game against the All Blacks would be on the cards and has prepared accordingly. “I can remember being in Kyoto two and a half years ago and quickly doing the mathematics.
“Even an Australian like me could do the mathematics, that we are going to play New Zealand in the semi-finals. The calculations were they would be at the top of their pool and win their quarter-final and we would be at the opposite end of our pool and win our quarter-final and the result was we would play them in the semi-finals. So progressively we have built a game that we think we can take New Zealand with and we have done that over the last two and a half years. Now we are just excited about the possibility.”
While Jones may claim the All Blacks are Japan’s second team, the son of a Japanese American mother and the popular former coach of the national team is by far the most visible “foreign” face in the country during the Rugby World Cup. However, he is having none of it.
“I’ve seen the All Blacks jerseys all around the country,” he said. “And you know even my wife, I’ve got to tell her to stop barracking for them because she’s Japanese. It’s like the samurai mystique character in Japanese history and it's the same for the All Blacks in rugby. Japanese people love that mystique of their haka and all that goes around there and that’s their second team.”
Still, many in the Japanese media are not having it. When asked by one if Tuesday’s national event regarding the changing of the Emperor in Tokyo brought out any special emotions from him for this great moment in Japan, Jones was quick to reply: “Well, it’s a change in history, isn't it? It’s a change in the history of Japan and we are going to have a change in the history of the World Cup. I do believe in omens.”
