How Kiwis were put to the sword in 2019
KYLE Sinckler has revealed the role played by an unorthodox team meeting involving a samurai sword and a kiwi fruit in one of the greatest results in English rugby history
Sinckler is braced for “big boy” rugby when New Zealand visit Twickenham as Eddie Jones’ men enter the business end of an autumn that concludes against world champions South Africa a week later.
Underpinning the conviction that the All Blacks can be toppled on Saturday is the emphatic 19-7 victory in Yokohama when the rivals last met in the semi-finals of the World Cup three years ago.
England were unstoppable with the final score failing to reflect their dominance and Sinckler, the outstanding Bristol Bears prop who was a starter that day, insists the foundations for the performance were laid a week earlier.
Addressing his squad, Jones used an authentic Japanese samurai bought from an antique shop to slice a kiwi fruit in half before declaring “There you go boys, see how we do it now?”. The stunt had the desired impact.
“We played Australia in the quarter-final in Oita – I scored a try – and then we had a team meeting on the Sunday, which is very strange. Normally Sunday is a day off, we do recovery and you never really see Eddie,” Sinckler said.
“But he called a players’ meeting at 9am. Everyone was like ‘What’s happened here? Has anyone done anything!?’ And he set the tone for the week.
“I’ll never forget that meeting in terms of how we set the week up with our game plan – talking about putting pressure on them, going at them, walking towards the danger.
“It was a surreal experience as we had no doubt after that meeting we were going to win and it was the only game in my rugby career where everything went to plan.
“Literally everything Eddie said would happen, happened. Usually on a Sunday you wake up going ‘How am I going to do this again?’, but after that meeting I felt ‘We’ve got this’. It was so special.”
Fixtures between the nations have scarcity value as they have met only twice since 2014 and while Sinckler started both of those games, he also made three replacement appearances against the All Blacks for the British & Irish Lions in 2017.
Sinckler added: “They’re great ball in hand players, but they’re also unbelievably physical.”
■ A sell-out Ashton Gate crowd of 26,387 will watch Bristol Bears take on South Africa A tomorrow night.
Joe Joyce will captain his hometown club against the touring South Africans in front of the biggest-ever crowd for a sporting event since the stadium’s redevelopment.
The Bristolian lock partners Joe Batley in the engine room, with Yann Thomas, Bryan Byrne and Max Lahiff getting the nod in the front row.
Magnus Bradbury switches to blindside in the back row alongside Jake Heenan and Fitz Harding, with Will Porter and Callum Sheedy at half-back.
Sam Bedlow and Piers O’Conor are at centre, with Gabriel Ibitoye and Deago Bailey joining Luke Morahan in the back three.