England vs South Africa: Eddie Jones may have awoken Faf de Klerk, but our forwards are key to Rugby World Cup glory

I’m a big fan of what Eddie Jones does by putting the pressure on the opposite team through flattery. It worked against New Zealand and now he’s trying to put the same focus on Faf de Klerk before a Rugby World Cup final, potentially the most important player in South Africa’s team, in the hope of putting him off his game and playing into England’s hands.

Eddie hailed Faf as the half-back of the tournament so far and I’d have to agree. Faf has been an outstanding player for a few years now, but I actually think that he enjoys the pressure and it will make him go up a level when the focus is on him. It’s when the focus is off him a little bit that he suffers, and I think Eddie might have been better to have not brought Faf into it at all and maybe just don’t speak about him. But he’s chosen to go and do all this stuff around him – apparently the Suntory scrum-half Genki Okoshi has been training with a blonde wig on! – and I think all of that encourages Faf. That gets the best out of him from what I’ve seen previously with him at Sale Sharks.

He’s a player who loves the big occasion. When England went to South Africa last summer, he was behind everything that South Africa did well and they ended up winning those first two games just because of him and his involvement. It’s been the same so far in Japan, and he’s just such an unusual nine that you can practice all you want for what you think he’s going to do but he never does what you think he’s going to do. Faf does what Faf wants to do at that time and he’s so erratic that you can’t practice for that.

It’s a shame that we’ve not seen Faf attacking as much as we know he can. He’s at times unstoppable in the Premiership and was brilliant in leading the Springboks to the Rugby Championship title too, but this is the way that Rassie Erasmus wants South Africa to play. In 2007 they won the World Cup because they had a kicking nine in Ruan Pienaar and they kicked an awful lot. It worked for them as they had great wingers like they do now who chased the ball relentlessly, they got it back because they’ve got big forwards and they scored tries from the turnovers or kicked the goals. It’s simple, but effective.

But there’s still a big danger here. Faf hasn’t been attacking as much but there’s absolutely no reason to say they won’t attack on Saturday because he’s definitely got it in him – we’ve all seen it. I just don’t think there’s been too many situations that have come up in the games he’s been playing in for him to start running. I’ve think you might see a bit more of it this Saturday.

South Africa will surely have something up their sleeve. Rassie’s a very smart coach and they’ve been a good team for a good few years now. It’s similar to where England have come from and how they’ve changed, they had a revamp of players and tried to build the squad back up again, and I’m sure that Rassie knew they’d get through the pool games without showing too much – a lot like England did.

Last weekend’s victory over Wales was not a great spectacle but it almost did seem like they’d said ‘let’s just get the job done and see what we can do in the final’. South Africa are a very different opposition to the New Zealand side that England faced last week, and they’ve got some outstanding players – it’s such big news for them to have Cheslin Kolbe back in the team, he is such a spark for them – and him and Faf are a dangerous combination.

The answer to that threat has to be Tom Curry and Sam Underhill. They have to get after Faf and I’m sure they’re been practising for that. Tom’s going to be chasing him around quite a bit, but I’m sure he’ll be trying to get hold of him, and England will be holding him down, winding him up and trying to put him off his game. Tom’s perfect for that, but it is quite unusual to see two lads go up against each other in a World Cup final who play for the same team – and we’ve also got Lood de Jager coming to Sale too who’s a big lump that will have play a key role tomorrow.

It won’t just be Curry and Underhill trying to stop Faf, it’ll be everybody, but South Africa are going to expect it and they’re going to know that what’s coming, so they’ll have thought of a way around that. Last weekend Handre Pollard started running the ball against Wales and he was the spark that carried South Africa to victory in the end because he started attacking the line – it’s unusual for 10 to be such a good ball-carrier. They’ve got a lot of options open to them, and we haven’t seen the best of Willie le Roux yet either, you never know with him because he’s the type of player who will just turn up in the final and be outstanding. You can concentrate on Faf, but I do feel like he will have his own tricks up his sleeve.

We can’t focus on him too much though, which I’m sure England won’t. They just need to play the game like they did last weekend, make everything on point, get every set-piece perfect, every play perfect and just do it all again. It’s as simple as that, surely...

I was just at home last Saturday, sitting there watching on my own, going mental at the television. I can’t remember a game where I’ve seen a team have so much go in their favour – it was literally the whole game. I’ve seen little glimpses of it in European finals with Saracens recently and I remember the first win against Racing 92 when everything just seemed to go our way, but because of the way England played and the intensity that they played at, they were incredible. I don’t know how they did it, but they must be so fit because the ball just never went out of play and it was back and forth, back and forth. I don’t know how they kept it up without making mistakes, everyone did their role exactly how they should, and it’s so hard to get a game and a situation like that. It’ll be so hard to replicate that, but I hope they find a way.

South Africa are definitely going to come at us with their kicking game so we have to match that, but you can guarantee we’ll be fully prepared for it. When I was in camp we spent a lot of time on catching balls in the air and creating a kicking game plan to create pressure, which we did against New Zealand last week and got a lot of joy out of it. We won’t be going away from that, but we’ve just got to expect a bit more from South Africa that that’s going to come our way. Hopefully that will put a bit of pressure on Le Roux at the back because he looks a bit low on confidence at the minute and I think they will target him.

But saying that, the England forwards are just so good at the minute. They’re so dominant that if they are anywhere near where they were last week I’m sure we’ll have a good day. I wish the lads all the best for what will no doubt be a special occasion, and here’s hoping we’ll all be cheering them on to World Cup glory.