Australia v England 2015 World Cup: Drew Mitchell, 71 Tests, was in a pub on match morning. Then the Australia coach texted him to get his boots on.
“Mate, no matter how bad that hammy is, it’s not going to be as bad as me playing.”
Drew Mitchell said it to Kurtley Beale in the warm-up for Australia v England at the 2015 World Cup, a few pints into a day he had planned to spend watching.
He told the story on Tuesday’s KOKO Show, eleven years late, with Matt Giteau and Adam Ashley-Cooper beside him to confirm it.
Twickenham, Saturday 3 October, the hosts needing a win. Australia won 33-13 in front of 81,010 and England were out before the knockouts. Stuart Lancaster did not survive it, and England are arguing about the job again.
Mitchell was not in the 23. Then his phone went. Has any dropped player ever prepared worse for a Test than this?
Not in the 23, so he went to the pub
“Well, I wasn’t picked in the match day 23. I thought I could go and have a few beers with some friends in the morning of and, you know, get that game day feel. Then I got a text from Cheik [Cheika] after I was a few pints deep saying, ‘Mate, we’re going to need you to strip up and just warm up with the boys.’ It was too far gone at that point.”
The men outside the 23 warm up anyway, because a late withdrawal means someone has to be in boots.
On this afternoon the reason arrived early. Rob Horne went off hurt in the 11th minute, and Beale, the man with the tight hamstring, came on for him and stayed on.
Passes that weren’t coming out of the screws
“We’re doing this passing thing across the field that we normally do, running the width up and back a few times, passing the ball, and I could catch the ball fine. They just weren’t coming out of the screws real well. He’s just getting really upset with me and angry and almost nasty because of the quality of the service I was giving him. I said, ‘Well, mate, come closer when I pass and then get width when you want to pass to me,’ cuz it just wasn’t going well.”
Then the hamstring.
“Then Kurtley went down with a bit of a tight hammy in that warm-up and I just went over and breathed on him. I said, ‘Mate, no matter how bad that hammy is, it’s not going to be as bad as me playing. You’ve got to be good.'”
Beale was good. Bernard Foley scored on 20 and again on 35, converted both, and Australia led 17-3 at the break.
The host summed up the day for Giteau, who scored the last try: “You played the house down. We remember the diving try.” Giteau gave the credit where the story needed it. “All thanks to a pissed [Mitchell].”
Mitchell was strict about what counts as a series on that same couch eight days ago. On what counts as preparation, he is looser.
When Sweet Chariot comes down in decibels
Ashley-Cooper played the whole game on the right wing, and his memory of it is the sound.
“There’s nothing better than kind of like silencing the crowd at [Twickenham] because… it’s one of the greatest atmospheres to be a part of. Like, you know, you enjoy that… Sweet Chariot kind of chant… but you enjoy it even more once it starts to come down in decibels, and then… there’s no better place to win, I reckon, against [the] English. It’s [Twickenham].”
Twickenham sings when England have the ball in the opposition half. A crowd that has gone quiet is a crowd pinned inside its own half. It got its voice back when Watson scored on 56, and lost it for good when Foley kicked the next two penalties, on 72 and 76.
Cheika told him off for the dive, not the try
The couch came back to the dive. Mitchell asked whether it hurt, given Giteau had been hit by Farrell. Giteau remembered what happened next.
“Oh, that’s right. And then Cheik [Cheika] had a go at me for diving. He said, ‘Mate… what are you doing?’ I said, ‘I got caught [up in] the moment. Like, it happens. But forgive me for just knocking him out.'”
Him being England. Someone on the couch put him right: it wasn’t him who knocked England out, it was all of them.
Farrell was sin-binned on 71 for taking Giteau out off the ball. England were still a man down on 80, when Ashley-Cooper’s offload sent Giteau away for 33-13.
Cheika’s complaint, as Giteau tells it, was the swallow dive with the game already won. Eleven years later it is the bit Giteau still tells.
Read also: Kieran Read says Australia are matched up better to the Springboks than the All Blacks were, which is the Test these three now spend most of the show previewing.
Australia v England 2015 World Cup: the two plays Larkham kept
The technical part of the story is Giteau’s, and it is about a call sheet.
“I remember the week before, or the game before, they lost to Wales and they shouldn’t have, and it was just at the death that Wales scored two quick tries and put the pressure on them. And we just wanted to start fast to take the crowd out.”
“Usually you got like a whole call sheet and you might get two of them out perfectly in the whole game, but our first two worked perfectly. We were up 14-nil and they’re those ones that were identified from a little while out, from Bernie [Larkham]. Up on the chalk… little play, back into Kurtley, Kurtley back to Bernard [Foley], he goes over. It was specific just for that team, held it up our sleeve until that game, and then the boys executed it perfectly.”
His match memory has drifted, as match memories do. Wales scored one try at the death, Gareth Davies on 71, and Dan Biggar’s penalty on 75 won it 28-25. Australia were 17-3 up at half-time against England, not 14-0. The mechanism he describes is exact, though, and it is the interesting bit.
Stephen Larkham had joined Cheika’s staff as Wallabies attack coach that year. A play built for one opponent costs the team reps. Every session on it is a session the other 30 calls do not get.
Coaches do it anyway because a defence has film on everything a team has run and nothing on what it has not. The window for a held play is the first 20 minutes, before the defence has seen a shape and adjusted, and Foley’s tries came on 20 and 35.
Beale, on for Horne in the 11th minute, was the man the ball went “back into”. The man with the tight hamstring.
Read next: Ben Youngs says England are not in the conversation to win a World Cup, which is where the 2015 story has ended up, eleven years on.
Your turn: the warm-up story
Cheika, who was linked with the Waratahs job in August before taking it for 2027, has heard this one. So has Foley, whose reaction to the idea of Cheika back at the Waratahs suggests he remembers the texts too.
Everyone who has played has a warm-up they should not have been at. Mitchell’s cost nothing and ended a World Cup for the hosts. The comments are for yours, and for the England reader who wants to point out that the try was on 80 and the game was already gone. It was.
He dived anyway.
Frequently asked
What was the score in Australia v England at the 2015 World Cup?
Australia 33, England 13, at Twickenham on 3 October 2015. Bernard Foley scored two tries and 28 points, Matt Giteau scored on 80, and Anthony Watson scored England’s try on 56. The defeat put the hosts out at the pool stage.
Why was Owen Farrell sin-binned against Australia in 2015?
For taking Matt Giteau out off the ball on 71. England played the last ten minutes with 14 men and conceded Giteau’s try in the final minute.
Was Drew Mitchell in the Australia team that beat England in 2015?
No. He was outside the 23 for that match. He had scored twice against Uruguay the week before, and he started the final against New Zealand on the left wing. On the KOKO Show he said he spent the morning of the England game in a pub before Michael Cheika texted him to warm up.
