Captain Jamie George has sounded the warning to the All Blacks that England will make a “powerful” statement in the opening Test of their series in Dunedin on Saturday.
He added that Steve Borthwick’s England have all the momentum and is confident of breaking a 21-year drought in New Zealand.
The veteran Saracens hooker is one of just four in an otherwise young squad who have played in New Zealand before but said it was important his team-mates don’t feel inhibited.
“We can’t sit back and wait because if we do that, we’ll be behind our poles 20 points down trying to create some sort of comeback like we did in 2022,” he said on Thursday.
“We come to New Zealand to play our way, to take New Zealand on. We’ve come to New Zealand to win, so we’ll know whether we’re there or not within the first few minutes after kickoff.
“Walk towards it, embrace it, love it. What an amazing opportunity we have got here. It was 2003 the last time England won here.
“I said to the boys like we’ve got an opportunity to do something really special so that in 20 years’ time when we are sat at one of those dinners not really wanting to be there, they are going to be asking us about the victory.”
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England’s last victory over New Zealand came in the 2019 World Cup semi-final when they faced the haka in a V formation. George and the senior leadership will meet on Friday to decide how to respond to the haka at the Forsyth Barr Stadium.
“We are still having conversations,” George said. “It’s the players’ decision.
“Steve has said that it is entirely on us what we decide to do, but we will probably make a decision tomorrow. The most powerful thing for me [in 2019] was looking up at the big screen and seeing our captain smirking. I don’t think I can pull off the [Owen] Farrell smirk.
“I think the most important thing regardless of what you do to the haka and regardless of what happens before the game, the first 10 minutes of a Test match sets the tone.
“What we did was that we put our necks on the line in terms of doing something different and challenging and then we backed it up. That’s going to be the most important thing regardless of what we do.”
George believes the English have the requisite cohesion to upset the All Blacks, something they haven’t achieved on New Zealand soil since 2003, after good progress in this year’s Six Nations.
England, playing a more expansive style than earlier in the championship, upset eventual winners Ireland before going down by two points to France in Lyon in March to finish third.
George said he saw more improvement in last week’s tour-opening 52-17 defeat of Japan in Tokyo and, while New Zealand present a bigger threat, believes their preparation couldn’t have been better.
“Regardless of who we play against now, I see opportunity everywhere within this team,” he said. “We wanted to use the momentum of the Six Nations to try and create an identity.
“This week has got that feel. We’re feeling fit, we’re feeling ready to go and we want to take these guys on,” George said.
Photo: Juan Jose Gasparini/Gallo Images
