Rugby World Cup 2019: Kyle Sinckler ready to go back-to-back for England thanks to Lions education

Kyle Sinckler is almost certain to make his Rugby World Cup debut next week, but the England prop believes his past experiences out him in the perfect position to go back-to-back and start their campaign with a bang against Tonga and the Unites States.

While Sinckler is unlikely to start both match, he will required to feature in the matchday squad as Mako Vunipola’s injury-enforced absence will leave the remaining four props in dire need.

With only Sinckler and Dan Cole named by Eddie Jones in his 31-man squad, the Harlequins tighthead knows he will need to take on a large share of the workload in Japan – likely more than Cole if he retains his place as England’s first-choice No 3.

But the prospect of a four-day turnaround between their opening fixture against the Pacific Islanders in Sapporo and their second game with the USA – more than 660km to the south – is not one that phases the 26-year-old given it’s exactly what he experienced in his big breakthrough on the British and Irish Lions tour in 2017.

“I’m a rugby player. I want to play rugby,” said Sinckler. “I’m not very good at just sitting around. I want to keep busy.

“The Lions helped me with that because we had pretty short turnarounds on that tour – sometimes Wednesday to Saturday. Sometimes guys had to double up, and in some cases triple up. It won’t be an issue for me to be honest, I’ll just have to focus on my recovery and keep my head down.”

“Sport is a funny old thing. Two years ago feels like 20 years. It was nice to be involved but it made me want to work even harder to fulfil my potential and continue playing well for Harlequins and my country if selected.”

Having broken into the squad a year after Jones took charge of the national team, it will be the first time that the 26-year-old has played at a World Cup, though as he is quick to point out “there’s a lot of hard work still to be done”.

For some players, a four-day gap between games would leave very little time to switch off. But that isn’t the case for the Battersea Ironsides product. He lives, eats and breathes rugby union, something that became apparent on the Lions tour when he revealed that he can recite Jim Telfer’s inspirational team talk from the 1997 series by the word, among many other special moments that he watched as a young aspiring rugby youth.

That goes for the World Cup too, though while growing up and dreaming of wearing the red rose, it wasn’t Phil Vickery or Andrew Sheridan who he harboured hopes of emulating.

“I’ve watched all of the World Cups,” he said. “2003 when we won it, 2007 when we lost in the final – (that was) brutal. I remember we got pumped by South Africa in the first game and I thought: ‘this isn’t going to be good’ but we got to the final. I watched them at home with my mum.

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“Anything to do with England and sport – rugby, cricket, football – I love it. 2011 was a bit disappointing losing to France. 2015 I watched it as well.

“They had a massive impact on me. I remember watching Jason Robinson tearing it up in 2003 and I wanted to be Jason Robinson. Then I looked in the mirror and I thought I’d probably go with Jason Leonard. I was still a back then but not for too much longer.

“They do have a massive impact and we realise we have a massive responsibility to deliver and to be successful.”

Sinckler though has more responsibility than most in this squad. Both he and Cole have support at tighthead from emergency cover Joe Marler, who played the final five minutes against Italy in their warm-up match on his ‘wrong’ side of the scrum to get some match experience under his belt.

But with Vunipola ruled out of at least the opening two pool games – and possibly more if his recovery from hamstring surgery and secondary setback suffered last month – Marler will be heavily relied upon on the loosehead along with Ellis Genge, leaving Jones with two props for each position.

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Furthermore, Sinckler’s worth to this team has been made abundantly clear throughout 2019. His stats are, to be frank, ridiculous for a tighthead prop, and it would be a fair argument to say that he has taken the dynamic style introduced by Ireland’s Tadhg Furlong and developed it even further. His childhood career as a fly-half and centre is evident in the way he can handle the ball, while the power he exerts when carrying gives England numerous linebreaks and front-foot ball – something that brought the 37-0 victory over Italy two weeks’ ago to life when he was introduced to the game alongside Genge.

If Sinckler and Cole can negotiate the opening two matches without concern and avoid the dreaded injuries that could dash World Cup dreams before they really get started, they may have the hardest challenge consigned to the rear-view mirror. Sure, there will be tougher opposition to face further down the line than Tonga and the USA, but after the early double-header there is a week between each match – enough time to recover even if one of them goes a full 80 minutes as we have seen out of Cole in the past.

His rise has been a prominent one, so much so that Warren Gatland – the man who took him on the Lions tour – felt the need to target him ahead of this year’s Six Nations clash between Wales and England in Cardiff. Why? Because Gatland, one of the wisest brains in rugby, knows Sinckler is one of England’s most dangerous weapons.

It was Sinckler who jettisoned Cole out of the England picture 18 months ago and he has not looked back ever since, having been at the forefront of Jones’s squad revamp that came midway through the four-year World Cup cycle when the coach deemed that the likes of Dylan Hartley, Chris Robshaw, Danny Care and Mike Brown would not be the right players to take to Japan. Now, Sinckler must show that faith, and the high billing that has come with it, was not a misjudgement.

Listen to Episode Two of The Indy Rugby Podcast.