Former England worldwide James Haskell has actually remembered just how previous trainer Martin Johnson’s motivational approaches went pear-shaped on 2 celebrations versus the All Blacks.
After England’s 2007 World Cup last look, the previous England captain took control of the head mentoring function from 2008 to 2011 and also in his very first period as head trainer finished a 2-Test scenic tour of New Zealand.
Speaking on RugbyPass’ The Offload podcast, Haskell remembered just how one video the monitoring group revealed them backfired after they failed to consist of highlights of any type of England gamers and also rather wound up revealing the group just how excellent the All Blacks were.
“They quite liked the motivational video, back in the day,” Haskell remembered of his very early years in the England group.
“As you lads can know, it can go horribly wrong, the motivational video.
“They thought it was a good idea, the first one was remixed to the 300 [movie], with “hold the line”, and also they take into it Gerard Butler going “hold!” and after that it was Ma’ a Nonu avoiding with everybody.
“And it was really weird because it was like “hold the line” and also Ma’ a Nonu, however Ma’ a Nonu looked incredible.
“I came out of it and was like ‘f***, New Zealand are amazing’, there wasn’t any clips of us.
“When they starting playing it, Joe Worsley just fell on the floor burst into hysterical laughing. The roar went up.
“They were in the other room going ‘right lads we’ve motivated them, they’ll be so ready for it’.
“They heard us laughing and the video guy was on like suicide watch, they confiscated his laptop, shoelaces and belt because we were going ‘mate, what the f*** was that’.”
The 2008 scenic tour of New Zealand really did not finish well for England after a 37-20 loss in the very first Test in Auckland, a hefty 44-12 loss was endured in the 2nd with Ma’ a Nonu landing a shot.
On the 2008 end of year scenic tour the All Blacks took a trip to England for a one-off examination where one more video was created however the video failed after a breakdown.
England endured a 32-6 loss with 2 attempts to Mils Muliaina and also one to Ma’ a Nonu.
“The worst one was, again we were playing New Zealand,” he stated.
“All week we were talking about New Zealand and they put on this video during the team run.
“We were at Twickenham Stadium, all the kits laid out for the warm-up, they played this video on the big screen and basically it goes ‘England versus New Zealand, November, 2008’ or whenever it was.
“It’s one of the scenes from Goodfellas where one of the Neighbours gropes the guy’s wife, Ray Leota’s wife, but there is no sound.
“You see this guy walk up, get a gun and pistol whip this guy onto the floor.. we were there like ‘what the f***’ and then [at the end of the video] it says ‘bring the violence’.
“Obviously you could tell it was a fault as there was no sound. Well we’ve run out and I’ve gone ‘well I’m confused, do I need to bring a gun tomorrow to play New Zealand?”
“You would’ve thought they would’ve gone and binned that but no, day of the game on the bus, hit it. Same thing but with sound this time.
“The best thing is we only got pumped by 30 points. What is beating someone with a pistol got to do with the game?”
