We’ll get bigger and better vows Billy
ENGLAND have promised to match the All Blacks and return stronger for the painful experience of being ambushed by Ireland. Their plans of landing another Six Nations Grand Slam and breaking the tier-one world record of 18 successive victories they hold jointly with New Zealand went up in smoke in Dublin. But England are determined to ensure there is no lasting damage to the side.
New Zealand, who have not lost consecutive Tests for six years, bounced back with three wins after their shock loss to the Irish in November and No8 Billy Vunipola wants a similar response from England.
“If you look at the best team in the world and how they react to a loss, they always come back bigger and better and that’s the focus for us,” said Vunipola after the 13-9 defeat.
“You don’t want to lose a game but we did win 18 on the trot, so you can’t get too greedy. Even the best team in the world couldn’t get to 19 wins.
“It has been a great run but as people keep saying, it was bound to come to an end and unfortunately it did in this game. It just shows how hard it is to win a Grand Slam first of all, even more so to win it back to back.
“It’s amazing how emotionally charged Ireland were. We’ve got to learn now that if we ever find ourselves in that situation we have to negate that and take the crowd out of the game.
“The most frustrating thing was that maybe we
didn’t play the way we wanted to. I guess that was down to Ireland. But we still won the championship so we’re happy with that.”
England’s next assignment is a tour to Argentina in June, which will be made stiffer by the absence of their Lions contingent and some unusual scheduling.
“I would expect at least 15 of our guys to go on the Lions tour and I’d be disappointed if we didn’t have that many in, so we could be missing half our squad,” said England coach Eddie Jones.
“It is going to be interesting for us playing Argentina at full strength.”
The two Tests will also take place away from Buenos Aires, in Santa Fe and San Juan.
Jones added: “One game is in the middle of the Andes mountains, so that is going to be quite a challenge for us. I didn’t know they could put a stadium there.”
A more recognisable England side will play next at Twickenham on November 11 against the Pumas, although there remains the possibility that a fixture against New Zealand could be inserted a week earlier.
“We are very keen to play them,” said Jones. “There’s still a fair bit of work to go but if the opportunity comes up, we’ll be raring to go.”