The acrimonious buildup to England’s final autumn Test against Australia looks set to spill over on to the pitch after Eddie Jones warned the Wallabies his side would look to “break them mentally and physically”. The lock George Kruis indicated the home team would be looking to “target their puppet masters” and extend their unbeaten run to a record-equalling 14 Tests.
Jones, depicted as “a creepy clown with a dark side” in the newspaper the Australian, is wary of a Wallaby backlash following their 3-0 home series defeat in June but is backing his team to go an entire calendar year unbeaten. “If we win this Test then we create history, so we’re aiming to create history,” he said. “It’s their last chance of redemption because they’ve had a tough year and if they win this Test they can go home happy.
“To beat them we’ve got to break them mentally and physically. We know they’re going to come out in the first 20 minutes like there’s no tomorrow. We’ve practised, we’re equipped to handle it and we’ll win the game in the last 20. But I don’t think fear is an element of our team makeup. The players are sharp and on it. They want this game, it’s a big game for us. I don’t think you have fear when you have clarity and confidence about the way you want to play and confidence from how you’ve prepared.”
Kruis said there had been “a lot of niggle” in the summer Tests which England’s players have not entirely forgotten. “They are probably left with a bit of a bitter taste from the summer and I think it will be flying. It is one of their last games so they will leave everything out there. You always target their key players, their generals, their puppet masters. It is definitely a plan.”
There has been plenty of verbal sparring this week, too, between Jones and his opposite number, Michael Cheika, although the former remains adamant he was fully entitled to focus attention on Australia’s scrummaging: “We made some comments about the game which were justified. Then Michael’s decided he wants to get the machine gun out. That’s his choice. I think he bought one between June and coming here.”
Cheika opted not to return eve-of-game fire, insisting the “fun and games are over” but did criticise the newspaper’s decision to publish a mocked-up clown image of Jones. “I don’t think that’s funny, I think that’s bad form,” he said, similarly unimpressed when he was depicted as a clown by the New Zealand Herald in October.
It was the same Cheika, though, who has described Jones as having “a chip on his shoulder” and criticised Dan Cole’s scrummaging technique, remarks which have been cheerfully noted by his ex-Randwick team-mate.
“There are plenty of chips in England. Whenever you buy a meal there are chips on the side. I don’t have to go looking for chips too hard.” According to Jones, his team are equally keen to get behind the prop: “The players are upset by the comments about Dan Cole but in a positive way. To single out a player is maybe not the right thing to do.
“Everyone makes a choice in life about what they say and how they behave. If that is how he [Cheika] wants to behave that’s entirely up to him. We are comfortable how we have behaved and comfortable how we have represented rugby. Rugby is a respectful game and we want to behave in a respectful way. Defeat always hurts and there will be someone hurting tomorrow but you have to carry that defeat and make sure we keep the game in its proper state. The great games of the world - golf, tennis and rugby - stand alone because they have a standard of behaviour.”
