MAK: IT’S BACKS TO THE BRAWL
Vunipola wants England to battle for revenge - just like in 2016
MAKO VUNIPOLA urged England to summon the spirit of six years ago and get out of the last-chance saloon unscathed.
Eddie Jones’ men are 1-0 down and defeat to Dave Rennie’s Wallabies in Brisbane on Saturday will see their series hopes ended.
Vunipola started the second Test in 2016 when England won 23-7 (right), holding out despite being bombarded by the Aussies.
That was one of the best defensive performances of the Jones era and Vunipola, 31, wants more of the same after England leaked three tries in Saturday’s 30-28 disaster in Perth.
“As a forward those are the things you remember, when you are on your line and fighting for 12 phases,” he said.
“As players being able to stick in the trenches with your brothers next to you, that is the feeling you started playing rugby for, being there with your mates.
“There’s no tomorrow now for us. We’ve got our backs against the wall.
“In a way it’s probably easier than when you win the first one and you know that they’re going to come at you.
“The Test series is on the line and we know we can still win it, but we have to give ourselves that chance by going out there and performing as well as we can.
“We need to put in a performance we can be proud of. It is time for us to show what we’re about as a team. We’ve got nowhere to hide. We’ve got to put our best foot forward.
“If we do that, we can come off the field with our heads held high. I don’t think we did that enough last weekend and the result showed that. Physically, I was OK, but the mental pain was tough to take. Mentally, a lot of us were struggling on Saturday night but we stuck together.”
Defence coach Anthony Seibold knows all about series comebacks as he was Queensland assistant when they turned around the 2017 league State of Origin.
They were hammered 28-4 in the first game by New South Wales but won the other two games to nick the series.
Seibold said: “We got tailed here at the Suncorp Stadium, which was the mecca of Queensland rugby league. We got embarrassed in front of the crowd.
“We went away and had a really hard fought win over New South Wales in Sydney. Then we came back and won quite convincingly in the third game.
“So I’ve been in this situation as a coach before in a three-game series.
“You look at our leaders like Courtney Lawes, Owen Farrell and Ellis Genge, you want to go to war with those guys. You know if you had to go to war with those three guys, you know they’re going to stand up.”