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LOUGHBOROUGH - Samoa rugby coach Michael Jones will not specifically target the World Cup Pool A match against England next month despite the world champions' faltering form over the past four years.
England have lost 23 of their 39 internationals since Jonny Wilkinson slotted an injury-time drop goal to win the title in Sydney in 2003.
Some pundits have already written then off and others have even suggested Samoa may send England home if they can beat them in Nantes on Sept. 22 eight days after the world champions play South Africa.
"If you look at their track record and most recent form, people are telling us we should be targeting the England match as must-win, but it's not like that at all for us," the former All Blacks loose forward told Reuters at his team's training base.
"We can't sneak up on people like we did in 2003, they know what to expect from Samoa. They know what we can do. So we are approaching every game as a target.
"We have to target the South African game and try and roll them. Then we have to get past Tonga, who are very similar to us and can cause an upset. They play the same way and they could beat us, then we have to play England six days later.
"In 2003 we got our easy pool games out of the way first and then stepped up against England, but this time we have to be ready to go from the first game."
Samoa were just 16 minutes from upsetting the eventual world champions in Melbourne in 2003, before several tactical substitutions enabled Clive Woodward's team to pull ahead and grind out a tense 35-22 win.
"England made some really important changes and brought on a few guys from the bench who just upped the intensity. We were probably missing two or three really professional guys like them on our own bench," said Jones.
"The intensity they brought to the game really showed the gulf between the team that was fully professional and had months and months to prepare together and are involved in a high level of competition week in and week out, and a team that did not."
Jones, who was an assistant to John Boe in Australia, said he had learned from that experience, and like many other international coaches had spent the past four years trying to build a squad of 30 players capable of playing international rugby.
"We have had the opportunity to build a squad over the past four years and this year we have had a five-stage road map, which we have been following.
"We took a development side to South Africa and Australia, then we had the Pacific Six Nations, then our team trials, a training camp in Samoa and now our final camp here at Loughborough and we will also play games against (English club sides) Harlequins, Northampton and Sale," he said.
- REUTERS
