New Zealand undertook a scouting mission at their own expense on Saturday, with the All Blacks attending Twickenham and seemingly without Eddie Jones’s knowledge.
It is understood New Zealand paid for their tickets rather than receiving any complimentary hospitality from the Rugby Football Union, with the advanced party of 23 players – who arrived in the UK last Thursday – given a close-up view of Jones’s side a week before their first match against England since 2014. Tickets for England’s 12-11 victory over South Africa ranged from £55 to £132.
Eddie Jones leans on England’s Lions to build dossier on defeating New Zealand
After the full-time whistle, Jones said the All Blacks would have watched the match on TV at their Teddington hotel “drinking cups of tea, maybe having some scones, saying ‘oh, we’ll take these guys’. They’ll be confident and we can’t wait to get them.”
But on Monday the New Zealand second-row Brodie Retallick revealed otherwise.
“We were actually at the stadium so we weren’t having scones or a cup of tea,” he said. “It was physical, it’s probably not the style of rugby we’re used to but they’re extremely good at what they did. I thought they did a great job.”
Steve Hansen was not at Twickenham. The All Blacks coach arrived in the UK on Sunday along with nine players who took part in Saturday’s win over Japan in Tokyo, but after catching up with England’s nail-biting victory over the Springboks, he is expecting another arm wrestle this weekend.
“A lot of people make mistakes about England and they are quite critical,” he said. “They play different than we do, it’s not to say they play a better game or a worse game, they just play differently. They are a hard team to play against and they showed that on Saturday. They didn’t have a lot of ball but they hung in there and won a game they probably didn’t feel they’d played their best but they still won. That’s the mark of a good side.”
England will need more than resilience to get better of New Zealand | Nick Evans
Hansen revealed he speaks to the England coach as regularly as every two weeks and acknowledged Jones’s record – five wins from 11 matches – against the All Blacks is impressive. “He’s got a tremendous work ethic, he does a lot of homework and through that homework he will have identified some areas he’ll want to try to target on Saturday,” Hansen said. “Does it give him any better idea than anyone else? Maybe, but there’s a lot of good coaches out there. To win a Test match against a good opposition side you’ve got to do your homework and get things to fall your way a little bit. He’s had some success against New Zealand in the past, and hopefully he doesn’t get any on Saturday.”
After such a long wait to see England face New Zealand at Twickenham, the RFU priced tickets as high as £195 and some are already up for sale online into the thousands. The RFU is expected to make at least £10m but New Zealand will not receive any of the gate receipts. “It would be good if you guys shared a bit,” said Hansen. “Fill that stadium up with 80,000 people, give us half the day’s takings would be good.”