Patrick Tuipulotu: All Black ahead of their match against England in Twickenham

After a dominating win over Japan last weekend, the All Blacks are preparing to take on England.  

It’s a rather different side playing this weekend, with only three of the 15 players retaining their spot from the last match and prop Ethan de Groot being dropped from the selection. 

Coach Scott Robertson said the team was preparing for a boisterous Twickenham atmosphere and a determined England side. 

Patrick Tuipulotu told Mike Hosking that they’ve got a fairly good sense of what the opposing side is about.  

He says England will be a bit fresher than when they last faced off at the end of their season, but they’ll probably play quite similarly.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Northern too well and truly underway. Tickle up with the
Japanese last week to warm things up real deal this weekend,
it's England that twickers Patrick two pilot. Who's weatherus?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
How's the week gone for you?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Very good? It's been good training where there hasn't been
too bad and yeah we're feeling good and confident leading
into a test.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
How much? What sort of thinking is going on in
the team as far as the tour is concerned England
to start with that interesting Ireland. Second you finished with Italy,
you might be a bit soft mentally by then, I
mean is it a tricky thing to think about?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, a very very much is quite tricky. I mean
from the outset you look at the whole for five weeks,
we've just at Japan and then you've got a tough
European schedule against England, Island in the French and then Italy.
So for us, I want to make it overpowering, so
we focus on each week, take each week as it comes,

(00:56):
and enjoy every day as it comes.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Good on you have you got a read on the side.
Let's start with England. Do you have a good sense
of what England are about at the moment yep.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Obviously we played them while they were finishing their season
in the middle of the year, and now that they
will play them at the start of the international season,
so they'll be a bit more fresh, and I think
they'll play similar to how they did in the middle
of the year, try and disrupt our set piece, kick

(01:28):
the ball quite a bit and try to dominate that way.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
And Twickenham does that have its I mean, Twickenham is
an opponent all in itself, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yes, very noisy. The crowd comes into play quite a bit.
Wove been training quite a bit with a speaker on
meetings out on the field, so not quite the same,
but in terms of prep it will help a little bit.
I myself have played there a couple of times and
it's quite enjoyable, just sort of listening and embracing the noise. Yeah,

(02:00):
if we play well, there shouldn't be too much noise anyway.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
How are you guys seeing it? Is it a season
of two halves? In other words, you've done you a
bit down in this part of the world and this
is a whole new thing. Or is this just a
continuation of the season of twenty four and therefore all
the wins and all the losses go to add up
in totality.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, it's a continuation. Obviously, want to get better every
test and we're trying to improve along the way. So
we're going to put a full stop to so different
games and different points of the season. I want to
carry on what we can.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
What are you making of Razor? You're loving him?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, I enjoy him. It's fresh. I enjoy how he
sets the mindset, it sets the scene at the start
of the week. He's quite a funny man and he
loves the correct jokes here and here, so around the environment,
he's just himself.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Good stuff, all right, Mike, go well, appreciate it very much.
Patrick two Pilota out of the All Blacks camp this morning.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
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