NOW FOR THE ALL BLACKS

Eddie’s boys too fourmidable for Aussies Jones: We’ve still to reach our best form

EDDIE JONES masterminded one of England’s greatest World Cup wins – then challenged his “samurais” to dethrone New Zealand.

England’s 40- 16 defeat of Australia was their biggest-ever margin of victory in a World Cup knockout game and put them on collision course with the All Blacks in next Saturday’s semi-final.

Jones beamed: “We are so excited about the semi-final.

“We can go there and challenge New Zealand and see where we can go with this team.

“We haven’t been at our best yet and that is the challenge: to see how we can get to our best.”

“Today was a do-or-die game. The best samurais were always the guys who had a plan, but who could adapt, who had a calm head and were full of aggression. I thought we were pretty much like that today, but the challenge is how do we get better because there’s always a samurai around the corner, so we’ve got to continue to get better.”

Twelve years after beating the Wallabies to reach the last four in France, England did so again to set up a semi- final with New Zealand.

Remarkably, just as on that day in Marseille, the catalyst for victory was an act of Aussie sledging that backfired. In 2007, two Wallaby forwards patted hooker Mark Regan on the head after an England scrum was penalised, prompting the immortal riposte: “Hang on, babs. You’ve got another 75 minutes to go yet.”

Yesterday it was Kyle Sinckler getting the head-pat treatment, this time from Aussie hooker Tolu Latu, after conceding a free kick with an early scrum shove.

A dozen years on and the outcome was just the same.