Six Nations: England's Chris Robshaw not having anything to do with Wales mind games
Saturday 7 February 2015 13:12, UK
Chris Robshaw has revealed England's refusal to get involved in any pre-match mind games with Wales, in the wake of their 21-16 win in Cardiff.
Stuart Lancaster's men were told to run out on to the Millennium Stadium pitch while Welsh players were still in their changing room, and they expected to be kept waiting on a bitterly cold south Wales night so instead stayed in the warm.
The scenes evoked memories of Martin Johnson's refusal to move his England team at Ireland's request as they lined up before completing a Grand Slam in Dublin 12 years ago.
No tricks
"We wanted to have a bit of control. We didn't want to be out there. You saw when we actually were out there, the lights were off," Robshaw said.
"I'm sure Wales would have made us wait for five minutes in the field. There was a little bit of that, but we stood our ground and went out when the referee said we needed to.
"We just didn't want to go out on to the pitch 10 minutes before they came out, it's as simple as that
"We didn't want to play any tricks or mind games, we just wanted to go out when they did.
"The referee didn't make us go out. We didn't want to wait and play sportsman's tricks, so we waited in the changing room and then in the tunnel together for as long as possible.
"When the referee said it was time to go, we went. He came out with us. We weren't going to be told to go out 10 or 15 minutes before they came out."
Different vibe
Robshaw was delighted with the way his side responded to going 10-0 down in the early minutes, and he felt their second half performance was more than worthy of the victory it brought.
"There's definitely a different vibe in the changing room this time. We spoke a lot about what happened when we beat them at Twickenham last year, not so much about what happened two years ago," Robshaw said.
"They're extremely strong at home and we knew the first 10 minutes would be tough. We went 10-0 down in the first 10 minutes and two years ago we would have crumbled again, but we stuck to the gameplan.
"We were pretty ruthless. We hunted them down. We knew the style of rugby they wanted to play. They have some big ball carriers."
