Confidence key at Twickenham
SELF-BELIEF and a road map for when the thunder strikes.
Those are Michael Cheika’s keys for the Wallabies to succeed at arguably the most imposing venue in world rugby – Twickenham.
The Wallabies’ clash with England in London on Sunday is taking on epic proportions with the hosts under enormous pressure to win, or else be knocked out of their own World Cup in the pool stages.
It has been labelled England’s “World Cup final” by Clive Woodward.
Assistant England coach Andy Farrell said yesterday players were in “fight mode” and the Australia clash was the biggest of their lives.
The England team have their backs to the wall and they’ll lean heavily on the support of a vocal home crowd at Twickenham. The 82,000-seat venue is long sold out; organisers had 650,000 applications for tickets to England’s match with Australia.
The majority of English media and expert pundits have been slamming the England team this week after their loss against Wales but it’s the Twickenham factor that has Cheika still claiming firm ownership of the underdog tag.
“Playing at your home ground is a massive advantage, there’s no doubt about it. Especially in this tournament,” Cheika said.
England enjoy a strong record at their home ground, having beaten Australia there seven times in their last 10 Tests. They’ve had a 70-plus per cent winning record there for the past three decades. A big part of that is sheer volume of noise that lifts England and often swamps rivals.
Cheika said the Wallabies had worked on techniques to deal with the moments where the home crowd pressure threatens to overwhelm.
“We have been trying to prepare for that for a long time by building our own self-belief, when the thunder of Twickenham comes, that we have the answers for that. That’s what we have been working on – those moments,” Cheika said.
“Things will always go against you, there will a few mistakes and any type of break, they will get behind. I was there for the first game and the atmosphere will be quite big.
“For players who know what they’re about, know their role in the team and then can refocus in those moments, they’re the ones who will succeed. That’s something we knew we would be encountering, so we have tried, as best we can because you can’t simulate it, to prepare a map to get out of the situations.
“It is probably an area in the past where we haven’t been as strong because we have lacked a bit of belief in ourselves, to get out of the situation. It is just about not fearing failure and backing what you have prepared and going to it.”
The Wallabies will have to deal with 80 minutes of Twickenham pressure but the English side are facing a week of intense expectation and pressure from all corners of their nation.
It has the potential to either galvanise England or burden them.