England vs New Zealand: How to beat the unbeatable All Blacks – the Chris Ashton column

The 44-cap England wing writes for The Independent on how it feels to have beaten New Zealand seven years ago and why Eddie Jones’s squad can achieve the same in the Rugby World Cup semi-finals

It’s a special name because it’s not what they’re called, yet we all know them as the All Blacks. It’s a name that puts the fear of God into everybody when you’re playing them because they have been forever and a day the best team in the world. But there’s also a bit of excitement when you hear the name. You want to play the best, you want to see the best play, and you want to see where you’re at yourself by playing a team like the All Blacks. Yes there is fear, but there’s an excitement around it, it gives you a lot of energy just being involved with such an unbelievable team and its exactly what England will be feeling on Saturday when they run out in a World Cup semi-final.

I remember the last time we beat the All Blacks well. It may be seven years since that day at Twickenham but those memories remain as clear now as they did then. We’d lost a few games before it, Stuart Lancaster was under a bit of pressure and we were all under a lot of pressure to get a win.

We were at home and it always helps being at Twickenham. New Zealand had been on this long winning run, it was their end-of-year tour and the last game of the season for them, so a lot was going right and in place for us to do well. We also had a certain Manu Tuilagi who was absolutely pulling up trees that day. He definitely added to that and thank goodness he’s playing for us this weekend!

In 2012 – as we were last autumn when we narrowly lost a game we should have won against New Zealand – we had played South Africa the week before. I’d like to think that your mentality doesn’t change no matter who the opponent is, but because of the success the All Blacks have had, you know in your head that you have to go up a level. You wouldn’t have thought about South Africa any differently, but when it comes to an All Blacks game, you know you’re going to get everything bang on, otherwise they will catch you out.

You have to cover everything that you can in your head, and be in an even better place than you’ve ever been before concentration-wise to make sure you’ve got your job right.

I asked Ma’a Nonu when I was at Toulon about the All Blacks from when I’d played against him, trying to find out what they did and how they went about their business. He said a few times that they would use what was said in the press to motivate them, and that’s why I like what Eddie Jones has done this week in trying to put all the pressure on New Zealand by bigging them up. It’s a great idea not because when you big them up they do seem to get an advantage, but because teams who have tried to give them some negativity end up getting absolutely hammered. When I asked Ma’a I could see from his face that they want you to disrespect them because it gives them energy and complete focus, and Eddie hasn’t given them that. I love that.

When you face New Zealand, they don’t need too much bigging up so you have to focus on yourself a little bit, but Eddie’s taken all that pressure off the team by taking an attitude towards the press of saying ‘let’s just go play and see what happens’. But in camp, I know fully well that it will be the absolute opposite on the agenda.

Looking back to 2012, I didn’t recognise during the game that we were on the verge of something special. It was not too dissimilar to the autumn just gone if I’m honest – we were ahead at half-time and we had a good lead, and then they come back with this purple patch of tries. You feel the momentum shift and go towards the All Blacks, and no matter who the opposition is during the game you feel when the momentum shifts, and we definitely had that with them. But the thing with the All Blacks is when they have that 10-minute period, you have to stop it as soon as possible and hope that the scoreboard is still in your favour or close enough that you can still get more points and that day we managed to plug that gap.

It was Manu who got the intercept and scored the try that just changed the whole momentum of the match to put us back in front again and just too far ahead for them to catch us – thankfully – because you always know they can do that.

One reason we beat New Zealand in 2012 was Manu Tuilagi - thank god he's on our side this weekend (Getty)

We really should have won last autumn too. Courtney was just offside on that charge down and we just couldn’t get the momentum back off them and they held out, and that was the difference on the day. Manu was able to do that back in 2012 but in the autumn we just weren’t able to wrestle that back off them.

It’s so frustrating that Courtney was declared offside. Of course I’m going to say no way was it offside because I wanted us to win but they’re the fine margins that will probably decide who wins this weekend. Half a foot, half a shoelace onside, and it’s a win and it’s a great day for us, but the All Blacks just find a way to win by keeping their composure to then get themselves back in front.

You have to try put them off and distract them from their plan. We were able to do that because of the weather, and because a lot of Ben Youngs’s box-kicks were completely on the money. We had such a strong defence to put them completely off their game plan, and you have to be able to maintain that. If you give them one chance, it doesn’t matter who it is, they’ll take it. In that game we probably gave them two chances and that was it, it changed the game on its head.

But for the boys who haven’t beaten New Zealand, they can take more than enough out of that game to believe they’re beatable. Being so close like that, what was a whole new experience for the lads is now the knowledge that you give a little bit more and you stop them. When they come for those tries, if you stop that straight away – which I think they can especially with this back row that they’ve got – I’m hoping that we can do a job on them.

We should have beaten New Zealand last autumn at Twickenham but it wasn't to be (Getty)

I think Eddie’s got the team right too. You can’t do so well in such a good quarter-final performance and then make loads of changes. With George Ford and Owen Farrell it’s always going to be up for debate isn’t it? Someone’s always going to have an opinion on that 10-12 axis but Eddie obviously sees something in it this weekend. He said quite openly that he wanted to change the team against Australia and it worked, so who’s to say that he’s wrong this week for changing it back around? You can’t really argue with it because of the way that they performed.

George has been playing really well and I’m sure everyone was pretty disappointed for him to miss out on the starting line-up last weekend so I’m glad he’s back in, it’s a very different line-up and a different way to play but it’s been working for England and I don’t see it as a bad thing.

I also think Tom Curry has had an absolutely outstanding tournament but I’m not surprised in the slightest. He’s been bubbling away for the last 18 months or so and he is an absolute animal at the breakdown. England have had a few of them over the years at seven and he’s mentioned that Richard Hill’s helped him in some way since he’s was at school, though I don’t know if he actually went to school, I think he just got told to do ruck drills every day by his dad!

Playing and training with England has brought his game on so much so quickly. He’s carrying well, he’s a lineout option now, and one of the reasons for that change is he was chasing too many rucks. Him and Sam Underhill seem to have found a way to master that to find the time and save a little bit of energy so you can give 100 per cent when the time is right, and it’s been a great story so far of those two playing together. Tom deserves everything he’s had at the tournament so far. His tackling has also been ferocious and he fully deserves his place in the team. I wish them all the best for the semi-final and I’m sure England can get the job done.