The war of words never materialised this week. Eddie Jones and Michael Cheika have been on their best behaviour; offered no end of long-hops, the pair have shouldered arms at practically every opportunity. Ricky Stuart, the Australian rugby league coach who has spent the week in the England camp, got momentarily caught in some mild crossfire but short of a small dig from Cheika in response to Jones’s claim that “the typhoon gods were smiling on us”, hostilities have not been renewed.
Instead, both have publicly praised each other. Jones said he was “proud” of the job Cheika has done with the Wallabies, Cheika wants Jones – an Australian working for the old enemy – to come home. Perhaps there is a mutual acknowledgement that for both coaches this could be their last match in their respective positions, while Jones also gave a clue as to why the verbals had been kept to a minimum. In reference to Jeff Sayle, a mentor to both from their time together at Randwick, who died recently, he said: “There will be a bloke in the sky who will be quite excited about Michael and I coaching against each other this week.” Asked if Sayle’s death had given Jones the chance to reflect on old ties, he agreed, fighting back the tears.
Both captains have followed the leads of their coaches. Owen Farrell is never the most forthcoming but Michael Hooper treated everything at Friday’s captain’s run with the straightest of bats. He even admitted he was doing so when asked if any of the players in the Australia squad with experience of playing in the Premiership had provided an inside knowledge on the England side.
Instead, he gave the air of breezy confidence that has been building within the Australia camp. Cheika has spoken of the belief he has in his players and Hooper repeatedly insisted his side were ready to go. “It’s not a normal week,” he said. “It’s a quarter-final so great, how good is that? To be here in this position with this opportunity. We’ve been preparing accordingly. I’m nervous. But that’s good, it means you care. I was nervous [for] the first Waratahs game of the year, the first trial, and I’m nervous now. It’s part of being a rugby player. You feel alive and ready to go.”
Looming over Saturday’s quarter-final is England’s six-match winning streak over Australia since Jones took over. Most of them have been thoroughly comprehensive victories too, and you have to go back to the 2015 World Cup for the last time the Wallabies defeated England. Both camps have dismissed the idea that the sequence will have any bearing and it is easy to see why, but that is not to say it does not have relevance. In many of them England have managed to get ahead and withstand an Australia fightback before pulling clear in the closing stages. It must also be said the Wallabies will hope for better fortune with regards to the officiating than in recent meetings at Twickenham.
“I have started to be of the belief that starting well is preparing well for the back-end of the game, when it opens up a bit,” Hooper added. “Starting well is sticking to your principles early, not getting flustered by things that are happening, not getting flustered by the scoreboard because you don’t win the game at half-time. Being worried would put us into our shell, being worried would not allow us to play the game we want to play. So, if [we find ourselves 15 points behind], we’ve got to have a plan to get out of that, and we will have a plan to get out of that.”
Hooper was also full of praise for England’s all-action kids, Tom Curry and Sam Underhill, whom he and David Pocock are set to take on at what should be a ferocious breakdown battle. It is likely to go some way to determining the outcome of the match but while Hooper and Pocock have 152 more combined caps than England’s flankers, he believes that can work both ways. “We’ve obviously done our work on them, we think they are great players, they are [a] top-tier international back-row,” said Hooper. “As far as experience goes, you could go, yeah, it’s great to have experience but also being youthful is of benefit. I have been in their shoes before, being wide-eyed, ready to attack things.”
