A win would be one of the greatest feats by an England team

Ending New Zealand’s dominance would be a landmark moment and this side have justifiably ignited hopes, writes Paul Hayward, Sports Writer of the Year, in Tokyo

Reason to be cheerful. “England are good enough to win and that’s all we’re focusing on,” said the captain. Not the England captain. The speaker was Kieran Read, winner of 106 games as an All Black and two World Cups. He ought to know.

History says no, the level England were at in the quarter-final win over Australia says maybe. We know for sure that England knocking out the world champions of 2011 and 2015 would be one of the greatest feats in English team sports. Not since 1966 have England’s footballers achieved anything comparable against a great power in knockout rounds. Here in Tokyo, there is the tantalising sense of a rugby Rubicon begging to be crossed.

Never mind whose street pressure is running up and down (see the mind games of coaches Eddie Jones and Steve Hansen), England, as a sporting nation, finds itself at the junction Gareth Southgate’s team reached in Russia last year. In both cases England teams have looked across the divide to a better place. Southgate’s men fell short of their first World Cup final since 1966 but in Japan an increasingly assured rugby squad have given themselves the best chance possible of beating the fabled All Blacks at this level for the first time.

That marshalling of resources so that England can feel they have maximised their hopes of progressing ought to be enough to ignite the hopes of people watching back home during tomorrow’s breakfast. To call it a potential landmark is not hyperbole. In rugby, All Black dominance has become a gnawing fact of life. In all other major team sports the order is fluid.

Even Brazil’s sun-coloured jersey no longer blinds the rest of the football world. In rugby New Zealand’s hegemony has shown no signs of cracking since they cured a habit of choking in the face of their own invincibility complex.

“Of course, people are going to say we’ve failed if we don’t win, but the nature of the All Blacks and the scrutiny we have, the expectation is to win,” says Read, who captains New Zealand for the 51st time. Hansen, who shifted the “pressure” back on to Jones by pointing out that England collapsed four years ago and have made Japan 2019 a fixation, has won 91 of his 104 games, losing only nine. The All Blacks have won 15 of their past 16 meetings with England. No wonder the bookies have them odds-on in Yokohama.

In the eight World Cups since 1987, England have won one (in 2003) and finished runner-up twice (1991 and 2007). “Just about acceptable” might be a fair description. But it sits far below what the money and the player-depth in English rugby say they ought to be achieving. They have lost three from three to the All Blacks in World Cups – in 1991, 1995 (to a Jonah Lomu rampage) and 1999. And yet, knockout games are not settled by history and precedent. Evidence can be mustered to support a belief in England.

Ask the All Blacks about English strengths and they look uneasy, as if to praise them might inflate the threat. Beauden Barrett says: “I wasn’t surprised by how expansive England played against Australia – and can play. I mean, for a number of years now they’ve had really good skilful backs and forwards who can play an expansive game, but also a physical game as required.”

Seven England players who started in the slender 16-15 defeat by New Zealand in November last year are on duty again: Kyle Sinckler, Maro Itoje, Sam Underhill, Ben Youngs, Jonny May, Owen Farrell and Elliot Daly.

Although England’s last win against the All Blacks was seven years ago – a thrilling 38-21 victory at Twickenham – connections remain. On duty that day were Manu Tuilagi, Farrell, Ben Youngs, Dan Cole, Mako Vunipola, Courtney Lawes and Jonathan Joseph. So tomorrow’s first semi-final in Yokohama is a giant-killing exercise only if you believe rugby is a fixed state of All Black dominance: a museum that everyone else here is obliged to stroll around respectfully.

Such a view would ignore the British and Irish Lions drawing a series in New Zealand, the retirement of All Black superstars post-2015 and – crucially – the strides England have made with young guns such as Tom Curry and Underhill, who form the youngest flanker pairing in rugby World Cup knockout history (average age 22).

None of which is to overstate England’s chances of reaching next week’s final. From Hansen, though, comes both a sharp assessment of where England’s psychological weakness might be and a fear that they are a coming force. He called Jones’s team “a caged animal” while pointing out: “They probably haven’t had as much success as they probably wanted, and they’ve had a massive disappointment at the last World Cup. We felt that in 2007 [when they were eliminated in the quarter-finals], and that adversity gave us the ability to look at ourselves. I’m sure England will have done that, too. They have been a marvellous team during periods of that time in the last four years.”

A marvellous team. High praise from the high priest. England, though, still have to deal with what Jones calls the “pace and intensity” of New Zealand’s play. “You’ve got to be alive. They’re always in the game, they’re always looking for opportunities,” he says.

Hard to believe this is only a semi. It feels like a final. An under-achiever against a champion, an aspiration versus a world leader. Hard to believe, too, that South Africa or Wales lurk further down the line. To win their second World Cup, England will need to have beaten Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and either South Africa or Wales in consecutive matches.

As Read and Hansen both indicated, winning a big quarter-final can catch the overly jubilant unawares. Players can think of a semi-final appearance as an end in itself, after which everything else is a bonus. England have already averted the doomsday scenario of a last-eight exit and know nobody would call them chumps for losing a tight match to the All Blacks, who have mastered the art of handling tight knockout games (a skill that eluded them for long periods prior to 2011).

No longer a referendum on Jones’s future – his job looks safe, if he wants to stay – this semi-final reverts to being a test of England and English rugby: the talent and the character of the players, the lifeblood of the game. It offers the chance of a breakthrough, a catharsis.

It can raise England to the level they really ought to be at: a side capable of beating the All Blacks in World Cup combat. If the odds still favour the All Blacks, just watching England try to make this great leap will be one of the most engrossing dramas in decades of English sport.