Australia head coach Michael Cheika unfazed by record against England: 'Looking back gives you a sore neck'

Australia coach Michael Cheika believes that his winless run against Eddie Jones’s England has no bearing on this weekend’s crunch World Cup quarter-final between the teams, and says “looking backwards is only going to give you a sore neck”.

Australia made hard work of Pool D, qualifying behind Wales to book Saturday’s clash with England in Oita, the first of the quarter-finals.

Since Australian Jones took over England in 2016, he has won all six games against the Wallabies, who have been coached by Cheika since 2014. That run includes a first series sweep for England Down Under in 2016, followed by three autumn Tests at Twickenham.

The pair were team-mates at Randwick in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and are both combative characters never shy of a jibe or winding the other up. Cheika described their relationship as “fine” and said “I don’t see him very much”, and said he was a “believer”.

“I’m just a believer. Call me a sucker. I believe in my lads,” Cheika said in Odawara, where his team are training for the next couple of days. “I know there’s other people who won’t give us much of a chance but I believe that when you believe in yourself you are much closer to being able to create history.

“I think it’s irrelevant, really. There are reasons, I’m not trying to avoid it, but why go back and talk about all those games?” Cheika said. “I talked about those games in those press conferences after those games. Looking backwards is only going to give you a sore neck.”

Cheika is likely to leave his post when Australia’s World Cup campaign ends. He has been in charge five years and guided the Wallabies to the final in 2015, when they lost to New Zealand.

The England fly-half George Ford agrees that his team’s winning run against the Australia was “completely irrelevant”.

“They are dangerous,” said Ford. “They can come up with plays out of nothing. They are very dangerous players, particularly in the backline. They have got some big guys up front as well. The thing with Australia is that you've got to be on your toes from minute one to minute 80 because they can strike from anywhere on the field.”

Both teams have injury worries easing for the match. For Australia, captain Michael Hooper and Adam Coleman were late withdrawals from the team that struggled past Georgia on Friday night, but are on the mend, while Kurtley Beale is going through the concussion protocols after a head knock in that game.

For England, Billy Vunipola (ankle) and Jack Nowell (hamstring) did not train fully while they escaped Typhoon Hagibis down south in Miyazaki this weekend, but there is confidence both will be available for the quarter-final. Nowell has played just 11 minutes, in what turned out to be their final pool game against Argentina, since June 1 due to injury.

“They have been involved in different aspects of training, in the gym and a little bit of breakdown in the gym as well,” said scrum coach Neal Hatley. "Jack was out doing some running this morning We will make a decision over the next few days.”

Due to the cancellation of their final Pool match against France, England will have had a two week build-up to the quarter-final.