England being spied on at training, claims Jones

England’s build-up to their World Cup semi-final against New Zealand took a theatrical turn yesterday after Eddie Jones claimed that their training session was spied upon.

The squad was completing one of the most crucial sessions of the week at their Tokyo base when, according to Jones, an unidentified cameraman was spotted in one of the buildings overlooking the pitch. The England head coach shrugged off the incident, despite facing the biggest match of his four-year reign looms.

“There was definitely someone in the apartment block filming, but it might have been a Japanese fan. We don’t care, mate,” Jones said. “We knew about it from the start, it doesn’t change anything. We love it.”

After initially joking that England had sent someone to spy on New Zealand, Jones said that observing another team in secret no longer has any value.

“I haven’t done it since 2001. Used to do it, you just don’t need to do it anymore, you can see everything,” Jones said. “You can watch everyone’s training on YouTube. There’s no value in doing that sort of thing, absolutely zero.

Everyone knows what everyone does, there are no surprises in world rugby any more. That’s the great thing about the game, you just have to be good enough on the day.

The All Blacks are the reigning world champions and are determined to lift the Webb Ellis Trophy for a third successive time, placing them on a pedestal that Jones believes could crumble.

“New Zealand talk about walking towards pressure — well this week the pressure is going to be chasing them down the street. That’s the reality of it, that’s how we’re approaching it. We don’t have any pressure. Put up your hand if you think we can win (no one puts their hand up). There you go, so no one. No one thinks we can win.

“So there’s no pressure on us, we’ve just got to have a great week, enjoy it, relax. Train hard and enjoy this opportunity we’ve got, whereas they’ve got to be thinking about how they’re looking for their third World Cup. I don’t think they are vulnerable, but pressure is a real thing. The busiest bloke in Tokyo this week will be Gilbert Enoke, their mental skills coach.

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“They have to deal with all this pressure of winning the World Cup three times and it is potentially the last game for their greatest coach and their greatest captain and they will be thinking about those things.”

Meanwhile, New Zealand coach Steve Hansen accused Six Nations teams of acting selfishly for refusing to back the Nations Championship. Attempts to establish an annual global competition culminating in an end-of-year final hit the buffers in June due to a lack of support from Europe’s elite, frustrating the cash-strapped southern hemisphere unions.

New Zealand clash with England in Saturday’s World Cup semi-final and Hansen insists the rarity of the fixture will not improve if the Six Nations continue to serve their own interests.

“South Africa are always going to be our biggest rival because of all the history that comes with it and because we play each other so regularly,” Hansen said.

“We’ve played England once in the last five years, so it’s hard to build rivalry when you don’t play each other. If we could get the Six Nations to come on board for a global season, we’d be able to do that. Once they do that, then they’re starting to think about the game rather than themselves.”