Jones always looking for a chip on his shoulder – Cheika

John Carlin’s Playing the Enemy is a magnificent overview of the 1995 World Cup final between New Zealand and South Africa, a game credited with having averted a civil war, while Lloyd Jones’ The Book of Fame (about the first All Blacks tour of Great Britain in 1905) is one of the very few novels on sport that I think actually works as a novel. That’s why I’d say he’s done it.

‘He’s been firing away at people. They’ll want to put the summer behind them and we need to make sure we are on our game to stop them.

“David Pocock will want to go out in the right fashion and the team wants to send him out in the right fashion”, Moore said Friday of the 28-year-old, capped 65 times by Australia.

An England success on Saturday would see them equal their best winning streak of 14 successive Test victories, 13 of which would have come under Jones.

“I’m not concerned about it, I don’t go into a game concerned about that”, Cheika said.

Harlequins winger Marland Yarde will take the place of Elliot Daly, who saw red in last weekend’s victory of Argentina, while Nathan Hughes will make his third appearance, replacing the injured Billy Vunipola who limped off last week – meaning England had to play with just 13 men for nearly a quarter of the match.

England have identified the game as their “cup final”.

“There was a hard-fought battle and a lot of injuries within the three Tests”. They also have a sheer determination not to lose that was evidenced in their win against Argentina at the weekend.

England whitewashed the Wallabies 3-0 in Australia in June after completing a Six Nations Grand Slam. “Mate, I think we’ve improved and we’re going well”, said Cheika. You always target their key players, their generals, their puppet masters. It is what rugby is about.

If we look below we can see that Ireland are starting to become slow on defence, we can see their pack is slow to wrap and then it’s a case of isolating Jackson by sending multiple options down his channel.

‘We love the atmosphere here. Create indecision and you’ve got chances to exploit that indecision.

After signs of dilapidation, Twickenham is becoming a fortress again.

“They’ve had a tough year, they can win this Test and go home happy”.

When asked if he would meet Cheika after today’s climax to the autumn series, Jones said: “Handshakes, cold beers, all friends at the end?” ‘They’ve gone back to a more Australian style of attack: flatter at the line, options inside and out. But I don’t think fear is an element of our team makeup.

The hype intensified when Jones was depicted as a clown in Saturday’s edition of The Australian newspaper. He was incensed. But Jones refused to comment on it yesterday. “If I’m going in the game anxious about that, then I’m not thinking about what I need to be thinking about”. The skill of our No 13 is just as important as the skill of our six and seven.

“They have players who like to throw themselves around quite a bit”.

“We’ve extended an invitation to Cheika, so it will be up to him whether he accepts it or not”. “There’s a plan C, D, E, ‘ said the skipper”. The idea is to play good rugby and get stuck in and be physical and do all the things that we like to do.

“You never want to look back too much but it would be nice to start to rectify what happened there, but you are never going to rectify it”. He’s as solid as a rock.

Jones, with tongue firmly in cheek, said: “We are comfortable how we have behaved, and comfortable how we have represented rugby”.

“We did our press conference on Saturday and made some comments about the next game which were justified”.

“We know he’s an influential player but Nathan’s a very good player in his own right”.