Respect for England teams in Australia tends to be rare, but these are increasingly abnormal times. The England No8 Billy Vunipola, who was born in Sydney and has several family members still living in the city, has noticed a real difference since he and his team-mates took an unbeatable 2-0 series lead over the Wallabies: “There’s been a lot of attention when we’ve been on the beach or just walking through town. Usually no one would care.”
For a frequent visitor such as Vunipola, who emigrated with his family to the UK when he was six, it makes a very pleasant change as England seek to complete a 3-0 clean sweep in Saturday’s third and final Test. “Usually teams beat us and we go back to England. Half of me thinks: ‘Good, at least they know we mean business.’ The other half thinks: ‘I don’t really care, as long as we are doing the business on the pitch.’”
It is a feeling shared by the entire tour squad, particularly those who had to endure England’s disappointing World Cup campaign last autumn. Suddenly, it is Australia who are under pressure on home soil and Vunipola is determined not to relinquish control. “We’ve given ourselves no other choice. We said at the start of the tour we wanted to win 3-0. We can’t let up now because we made promises and we can’t break them.”
In amongst this fierce collective desire, the head coach, Eddie Jones is also craftily cajoling individuals to greater heights. The 23-year-old Vunipola is among them, having been informed by Jones there is no limit to what he can achieve in rugby. “He wants me to be this player I don’t even see myself. He wants me to be challenging the best No8s in the world. Now that he’s told me I think: ‘Why not?’ That’s my goal, that’s what I’m working towards. Eddie’s been a great influence on me.”
It is probably no coincidence that this been the most consistent season of Vunipola’s career; Saturday will be his 30th game of a remarkably successful season that has yielded nine wins in 11 Tests for England, including three man of the match awards in five Six Nations fixtures, and 17 victories in 18 matches for the domestic champions, Saracens. He has more he wants to achieve, particularly conscious there is a Lions tour to New Zealand next season that Kieran Read, Toby Faletau and Jamie Heaslip, among others, will also want to dominate.
The good news for the 126kg Vunipola is that, finally, he has his fluctuating weight more under control. “I’ve stayed the same weight the whole year. I usually put on a bit, but I never realised I could keep it off until Eddie came in. That needs to become normal and turning up to pre-season in good shape also needs to become normal.”
He has also been forgiven by his team-mates for the extra workload he dumped on them by mistakenly kicking the ball out before the half-time hooter had sounded last Saturday in Melbourne, condemning his side to an intense 22-phase period of scrambling defence. “I made that decision myself. It wasn’t a smart one. I felt sorry for my poor brother. He was rushing around as much as me to make sure the mistake didn’t fall back on me. There was no one else to blame but myself. I thought the time was up, but obviously it wasn’t. It was never my intention to make the boys work like that.
If the Vunipola brothers keep improving at their current rate, they will surely both wear Lions red next year. Mako does not always attract as much recognition, but his younger brother agrees that Melbourne was one of his best games in a white jersey. “We’re not meant to blow smoke up each other’s backsides but I thought Mako was very good. We probably could have swapped shirt numbers and no one could have told the difference.”
The excited reaction among the extended Vunipola clan in Sydney has, inevitably, left Billy inundated with extra ticket requests for the third Test. “One of my grandmothers lives here and my mum’s family is based here. I come here every year on my way to Tonga so it’s a familiar place. Some of my relations live near the airport, some actually live around here. But I’m refusing to even pretend we know each other; I just don’t want to go out of the hotel.”
When he does finally emerge for Saturday’s game, however, the big man will be ready for the final push. The World Cup, given all that has happened since, might as well have never happened. “We are getting just reward for all the work we have done, not just this season but last year and the year before. After the World Cup a lot of the boys were in a bit of a rut, but we always thought we were better than what we put out on the pitch. We just needed to change something.”
The mood has now altered fundamentally and Vunipola’s days of anonymity down under are well and truly over.
