Battle of wits
November when the Irish upset the All Blacks 16-9 in Dublin, the first time they had defeated the world champions in Ireland.
Two years earlier Ireland beat the All Blacks 40-29 in Chicago, recording their first-ever win over New Zealand.
Schmidt’s ability to extract the best out of his players, and give them a game plan that suits their skills, won’t be lost on Hansen.
Does Hansen enjoy attempting to outwit Schmidt?
‘‘Yeah, but no more than anyone else,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s what I am saying. It’s why we concentrate on ourselves. It’s our coaching group, it’s our management group and our group of players getting our week right.’’
This was duly noted by The Guardian. In a piece looking at what England may have discovered about Australia at this World Cup, they went back to the old chestnut, declaring ‘‘the battle starts with Cheika’’.
‘‘It did not take long for Cheika to pull the pin out of the first verbal grenade and lob it in the direction of his old rival Jones,’’ The Guardian reported.
‘‘Speaking soon after the victory over Georgia he said: ‘I saw he was saying that that would be an advantage and the typhoon gods were smiling on him.
‘‘So I suppose they’d better win. They’ve had the best preparation, according to the coach, so they’d better go out there and win.
‘‘Since being appointed as England head coach, Jones has led his side to six consecutive victories over Cheika’s Wallabies, starting with a 3-0 series win in Australia in the summer of 2016. On that tour Jones came out on top in the verbal jousting as well and since then, the pair have rarely resisted the chance to go at it. It is unlikely they will change tack this week.’’
In reality Jones has been on his best behaviour in Japan. He hardly threw a barb at any opponent during pool play where England were business-like in getting three comfortable wins to head their group.
But that stakes are raised now.
It’s knockout rugby and few coaches have a better understanding of the pressures involved in this tournament than Jones who has coached Australia to the 2003 World Cup final, helped South Africa win the 2007 title and gained hero status while in charge of Japan during the 2015 tournament where they upset the Springboks, resulting in him getting that movie-star treatment.
Now he is in charge of England and the expectations are huge.
Cheika may have beaten him to the opening punch but expect Jones to get some verbal sparring in ahead of the opening bell.