Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
ROSE TO OCCASION.. NOW BACK TO WORK
WHEN the pandemonium around the fringes died down you were struck by the calmness in the middle.
The almost total absence of celebration, let alone any form of smugness or self congratulation.
England had just put down a performance for the ages – beaten New Zealand in a World Cup semi-final.
Yet in the aftermath it was as much as they could do to raise a smile.
“The feeling now is that we’ve given ourselves an opportunity,” said Red Rose fly-half George Ford. “That is all it is.
“We’ve got one opportunity now to finish it off. We want to enjoy the win, but we understand what is ahead of us.”
After the game, coach Eddie Jones walked into the changing room and addressed his squad.
“It was, ‘Well done, good win’,” said Ford. “He said he was proud of us, ‘Now let’s crack on to this week’.
“We are over the moon with the win, but genuinely – and this is not faking it in any way, the feeling across the players is we want to finish this off.”
Billy Vunipola (inset) said: “At the start of the week Eddie wanted us to rewrite history. We have gone one step towards doing that. Now we have another game.”
This remarkable sense of calm served England well at Yokohama Stadium where in Ford’s words, “We knew we were not able to switch off for one second”.
They had two tries disallowed, momentum swings which would have rocked lesser sides, yet simply came back harder.
Even when they made their only real mistake of the game, a lineout malfunction that gifted New Zealand their only points, there was no dialling down of spirit.
“It was incredibly calm behind the posts,” said Ford.
“And that was massive for us. At that stage of the game, to give a try away… but we were thinking, ‘What’s next?’
“We went down the other end and got three points, which is exactly how you want to respond.”
This has not just happened because Jones has decreed it. It has taken an inordinate amount of work by all concerned. It was only in March that England blew a 31-0 lead against Scotland.
“Having some structures and systems in place to calm everyone down and get some messages across has massively benefitted everyone,” Ford said. “We’re still working on it every day.”
And so England move forward to Saturday’s final against South Africa. One step from immortality was how it was put to Jones.
“It’s another week for us,” came the reply. “That talk is for you guys.
“Enjoy it, because you won’t be getting anything from us.”