{"id":574201,"date":"2025-11-16T13:35:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T13:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/574201\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T13:35:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T13:35:26","slug":"jamie-george-admits-he-was-brains-behind-englands-provocative-response-to-haka-england-rugby-union-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/574201\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie George admits he was brains behind England\u2019s provocative response to haka | England rugby union team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Henry Pollock\u2019s starring role in England\u2019s response to the haka was designed by Jamie George, who revealed he took inspiration from the 2019 World Cup semi-final win and admitted they risked poking the bear before clinching a first home win<\/a> over the All Blacks in 13 years.<\/p>\n

George admitted he was the brains behind England\u2019s decision to initially line up as usual while the All Blacks performed their traditional war dance before breaking out into a V-shape. As the eldest player in the squad, George was intentionally on one end with Pollock, the youngest, on the other. The captain Maro Itoje stood at the point of the V, which, in truth, looked more like a C-shaped formation.<\/p>\n

Pollock was seen licking his lips in response to the haka with George joking England had their doubts over allowing Pollock \u2013 who has a habit of getting under opponents\u2019 skin \u2013 such an important task.<\/p>\n

In 2019, England performed a more polished V-shaped response before a stunning performance to down the All Blacks<\/a> for the first time in seven years and reach the World Cup final. Afterwards Mako Vunipola admitted \u201cwe knew it would rile them up\u201d, though England were fined because a handful of players crossed the halfway line because World Rugby regulations state that opposing teams must remain in their own half when receiving a cultural challenge.<\/p>\n

George and Pollock had no such trouble with the All Blacks themselves edging towards England\u2019s formation as they performed the haka. George acknowledged he wondered if there would be a repeat of a 1997 incident when Richard Cockerill ended up nose to nose with Norm Hewitt but revealed England\u2019s connection with the Twickenham crowd was a key factor behind deciding to bring a response.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a difficult thing when you don\u2019t want to get too complicated,\u201d said George. \u201cThe theory was that the oldest would be on one side, the youngest would be on the other. So I was on one side, Henry Pollock was on the other. We were quite reluctant to give it to Henry because we weren\u2019t sure what he was going to get up to \u2013 with Maro in the middle of the V.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can [poke the bear] and we won\u2019t necessarily always respond to it. But at the same time we felt like I put it to Maro and Steve [Borthwick]. And I had an idea and I thought \u2018why not?\u2019. I quite liked the idea so they got on board with it. Maro said as long as we don\u2019t have to have too many rehearsals.<\/p>\n

England players look on as New Zealand players perform the haka. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to replicate 2019 because we hadn\u2019t done it here at Allianz which is something that I thought was pretty cool. I felt like starting in a flat line and then heading into the V would be pretty cool. I thought their response to it was also good and I thought it\u2019d be one of those old school sort of days where we\u2019d be face to face. We speak a lot about the connection with the fans and making match days at Allianz a really fun and special thing to come to. A response like that is great but then backing it up with the performance was the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

George also urged his teammates to celebrate becoming only the ninth England side to defeat the All Blacks in style before Borthwick\u2019s side set their sights on an 11th straight victory against Argentina next Sunday. \u201cBe present, be present, enjoy it, this is history, this is a big win,\u201d he added. \u201cWhen I spoke to the boys on Thursday I said like people still talk about 2012, people still talk about Manu in 2012, people still remember Brad Barritt\u2019s try in the corner in 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully now we\u2019re giving the fans, the 82,000 fans that came here, the millions of fans who watched it on TV an opportunity to speak about us like why would we not celebrate that, why would you not have a really good time together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Henry Pollock\u2019s starring role in England\u2019s response to the haka was designed by Jamie George, who revealed he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-574201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115559647513229008","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}