Everyone calls us arrogant, but New Zealand are far worse!

Everyone says the english are arrogant, but they are certainly not as arrogant as new Zealand *. all the kiwis who I know, like my Harlequins coach nick evans, have been telling me how new Zealand are going to smash us!

They preach about being so humble and sweeping the changing room after a match... then they go and tell everyone that they’ve just swept the changing room.

It’s like that guy who wins the unsung Hero award at work, then updates his Facebook status about it and can’t help bringing his trophy into the office the next day.

Then again, I guess it’s hard to be humble when you win all the time. They’re the best in the world and that deserves respect, but some teams give them too much respect. They get put on a pedestal, but they’re just 15 guys in black tops. The moment you fear them is the moment you’ve lost. a lot of the england players beat them with the lions last year and they’ll be saying, ‘listen, these guys are beatable’.

england have to get in kiwi faces early and make them feel like they are in a fight. as soon as they get some confidence, you look at them and think, ‘Jesus — they are pretty unstoppable’.

you don’t want to see their locks flicking out offloads like they’re Sonny Bill Williams. one of those locks is Brodie retallick. now he is a world- class second row but he’s not so good with names!

at a press conference in 2014 he was asked what he thought about his opposite number, Courtney lawes.

In his answer he kept talking about ‘Michael’ lawes which wound us up a bit.

I kept calling Brodie ‘Bryan’ during the match that weekend but my tomfoolery backfired and we lost.

after the first lions Test last year he came up to me and said, ‘ah, John, how are ya, John?’

It was three years later, so it took me a while to work out what he meant. I’d had a beer or two! *Let’s all stop calling them the All Blacks, please.