Monday morning, barely 12 hours after full time in their World Cup quarter-final win against Fiji, Marcus Smith’s lip still fat from one of the numerous whacks he received, and the England coaches have already held a meeting to plot a victory against South Africa that few believe they have much of a chance of pulling off.
They will hold another before the day is out and, while Steve Borthwick had started planning for both potential opponents last week, he can consign his French homework to the scrapheap. Up next in Paris on Saturday are South Africa: the side that bullied England off the field in the 2019 final, the side who have just dumped the hosts out of their own party and moved to the top of the world rankings as a result, the side who precipitated regime change at the Rugby Football Union – the defeat at Twickenham last November was Eddie Jones’s last in charge – and the side now as short as evens to successfully defend their crown.
It is not uncommon at this stage of the tournament for competing teams to run a mile from the tag of favourites but, in this instance, England seem justified in claiming the label of underdogs. On one of the rare occasions Borthwick’s mask slipped after the match he snapped “I don’t care what people think of us” when addressing the issue, but there is a difference between being unfancied and being written off. He is making it clear that he still has a problem with the latter in the buildup to the tournament. Suffice to say, he would do well to move on.
His players, meanwhile, are seemingly never happier than when their backs are against the wall. “When no one gives you a chance you’ve got an opportunity to stand up and go and take it,” the hooker Jamie George said. “It’s fantastic. We really don’t mind that at all.”
Indeed, the fact that in some quarters England are already being pencilled in for the bronze‑medal match on Friday week suits them. It was a similar, if less pronounced, situation four years ago; New Zealand were favourites in their semi-final but England produced their finest work under Jones and put the All Blacks to the sword. On the topic of swords, Jones brandished one that week and used it to slice a kiwi fruit in half in front of his squad. He also cooked up a cock-and-bull story about his players’ training sessions being spied on, lashed out at New Zealand reporters for being “fans with typewriters” and vowed to “chase the All Blacks down the street”.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for Borthwick to do anything remotely similar but, putting the gimmicks, the symbolism and the mind games aside, he will listen to the core of players involved four years ago. Eight of the side who started that semi-final also lined up against Fiji on Saturday and it is clear that the belief Jones engendered in his squad that week, and the determination to take the fight to their opponents, are two qualities that this side will need in spades.
Maro Itoje, who on the eve of the All Blacks match delivered one of his most passionate rallying cries before turning in the performance of his life, is similarly forthright. He has been watching a documentary about the NFL player Jason Kelce recently and his biggest lesson is that “hungry dogs run faster”.
Itoje says: “You have to attack it. You have to attack every facet of the game. When you get to the semi-final level of World Cups, you are playing the higher‑quality teams and everything is a contest. Every scrum, every breakdown, every carry, every set piece, you have to make it a contest.
“Whoever wins the most contests will win the game. The build-up was just about being focused on us. We knew they were the No 1 team in the world but it was about what we were going to do and how we were going to play and how we were going to impose ourselves.”
George, who again went the distance against Fiji, recalls that while Jones was making merry in front of the cameras, England were able to pace themselves in the run-up to facing New Zealand. “We didn’t play the game too early in the week,” he said. “We were very clear about how we wanted to approach the game. Ultimately it was us setting the intensity of the game and trying to blow them away, teams previously hadn’t done that to the All Blacks.”
Nonetheless, England are aware of the size of the task that lies ahead four years on. They have arrived in Paris as the only unbeaten side in the tournament, as the last bastion of hope for a winner from the northern hemisphere. But, according to the attack coach Richard Wigglesworth, when it comes to South Africa, “we are probably talking about one of the best rugby teams to ever do it, aren’t we?”
He says: “We are talking about a team that’s aiming to go back to back, who have evolved, who have moved on and had a settled coaching team for six years, with settled players, and they have added quality to it. So they are an impressive outfit. They’ve got multiple threats now and that’s probably why they are aiming to be one of the best ever.”
