EDDIE JONES DECLARED England are ready to take on New Zealand after Japan were swept aside 52-13 to revive an autumn that had opened with a shock defeat by Argentina.
England plundered seven tries to warm-up for the main event of the month against the All Blacks with a heavily improved display, albeit against a disappointing Brave Blossoms.
A thumping semi-final victory over New Zealand at the 2019 World Cup is the highlight of Jones’ seven years in charge and he insists defeating them again is not “mission impossible”.
“It’s an opportunity to play against one of the giants of world rugby. For an England player it’s a massive opportunity,” the head coach said.
“If you look at the history of the sport, the game’s been going for 150 years and England have won 19% of their Tests against New Zealand.
“There’s a narrative that says England can’t beat New Zealand but in 2019 we showed that if you’ve got the right attitude and the right game plan then history can be broken. We’re looking forward to the opportunity to break history again.
“They’re playing a slightly different style of game to what they used to but guys who played in that game – Owen Farrell, Mako Vunipola, Billy Vunipola, Maro Itoje, Jamie George – are going to be important in reinforcing to the players that it’s not mission impossible.
If we go after them then they’re there for the taking – and we’re going to go after them.”
England were in control from start to finish as they atoned for the disappointment of falling 30-29 to the Pumas, who stormed Twickenham for only the second time in their history.
“It’s an improvement. As we said at the start of November, each game we want to get a little bit better and we were definitely better than the Argentina game,” Jones said.
“I thought we played with a lot of purpose and we knew exactly how we wanted to play.
“As I said in the round-up after Argentina, the fault that we didn’t play like that against Argentina was my poor coaching, so this week it is not my poor coaching. It’s a good play from the players.”
Japan presented Owen Farrell with a Samurai sword after the game and head coach Jamie Joseph admitted his side had been cut down by the hosts.
“England played really well and put us under a lot of pressure, especially at the start of the match. You have to take your hat off to them,” Joseph said.
“Their pressure game was far superior. We became a little frantic and pushed a few passes.
“When we can create momentum we can be very dangerous but we didn’t do that in a Test that was a big game for our boys.”
