New Zealand boss Ian Foster plans to enjoy a bowl of popcorn while watching England’s blockbuster with South Africa after his side eased into the Rugby World Cup final by dispatching Argentina.
Foster can put his feet up for Saturday evening’s colossal semi-final clash between Steve Borthwick’s men and the Springboks thanks to a crushing 44-6 success over Los Pumas in Paris.
The 58-year-old expects an “interesting contrast of styles” in the other last-four fixture and is not bothered who the All Blacks face in next week’s showpiece match at Stade de France.
New Zealand barely broke sweat in booking an unprecedented fifth World Cup final appearance and now have the luxury of an extra day’s rest as they await the identity of their ultimate opponents.
“I’ll be watching it,” said Foster. “I’ll probably have some popcorn and sit there and watch it and I don’t care who wins. We’re very much in a focus-about-ourselves stage.
“One thing that extra day does give us, it gives us a bit of a chance to have a break mentally and not to spend too much juice worrying about if it’s them, if it’s them.
“They’re both good teams. South Africa have been playing some brilliant rugby the last few weeks and are clearly on top of their game.
“But we’ve also seen an English side that just build away quietly and are probably starting to understand how they want to play and they’re starting to get really good at how they want to play and believe in that.
“It will be an interesting contrast of styles.”
All Blacks wing Will Jordan ran in a hat-trick during the seven-try rout in Saint-Denis to lift him above France’s Damian Penaud as the World Cup’s leading try scorer on eight.
The treble also saw the 25-year-old equal the record for tries in a single tournament, putting him alongside Jonah Lomu, Bryan Habana and Julian Savea.
Foster was able to empty his bench long before the full-time whistle due to the emphatic scoreline and opted to keep the sin-binned Scott Barrett on the sidelines for around five minutes longer than required as the Kiwis finished with 14 men.
Asked if those situations could prove advantageous moving towards the final, Foster said: “I don’t think they’ll make a massive difference.
“Finals are finals and whoever we play, they’ll be a hundred per cent.
“It was an opportunity for us to make sure that we looked after our resources as best we could.
“We really didn’t see a need of putting Scooter (Barrett) back on, only from the perspective that if he had another little yellow card incident in the next five minutes, it might have made it a little bit niggly.”
Argentina were a shadow of the side who stunned Wales in the last eight.
A pair of first-half Emiliano Boffelli penalties was all they could muster.
Shannon Frizell’s double, plus further tries from Jordie Barrett and Aaron Smith, added to their punishment.
Los Pumas head coach Michael Cheika felt New Zealand ruthlessly exploited each of his team’s errors and was unhappy with some of the refereeing, particularly during first-half rucks.
The Australian promised his players will respond to a difficult outing in the bronze-medal match.
“It’s not a sad moment; it’s a moment when I’m actually proud of my team,” he said.
“It’s not an easy path that we’ve been on. We’ve invested ourselves a lot in this. But we’ve lost on details. I’m sad for them.
“It’s hard but its a good thing it’s hard. On Friday, we will be there, have no doubt. We will not leave this way.
“We want to finish third. We’ve got things we want to show in the bronze final. Right now, we’re hurting.”
Saka and Jones withdraw from England's Nations League squad
England have confirmed that Arsenal's Bukayo Saka and Liverpool's Curtis Jones have withdrawn from the squad ahead of their Nations League clash with Finland on Sunday.
Saka was replaced by Noni Madueke in the 51st minute during England's shock 2-1 defeat to Greece at Wembley on Thursday after picking up an injury in his right leg.
It only adds to Mikel Arteta's injury worries ahead of facing Bournemouth next Saturday after Martin Odegaard was injured on international duty for Norway last month.
Saka has enjoyed a fine start to the Premier League campaign, scoring two goals and laying on a further seven assists in the Gunners' opening seven games.
The England international has also created more chances (27) than any other player in the division, with his nine goal involvements a total only bettered by Chelsea's Cole Palmer (11) and Manchester City's Erling Haaland (10).
Lee Carsley will also be without uncapped Liverpool midfielder Curtis Jones, who was added to the Three Lions squad earlier this week, but has since withdrawn due to a personal commitment.
Jones earned his first call-up in May as part of Gareth Southgate's provisional 33-man squad for Euro 2024, but did not make the final cut.
The 23-year-old was part of the Young Lions side that won the 2023 European Under-21 Championship under Carsley, scoring the only goal in their 1-0 win over Spain in the final.
Brook has everything to become England's 'best ever', says Anderson
Harry Brook has all the attributes needed to become England's best ever batter after his sensational knock against Pakistan, so says James Anderson.
Brook became the first England batter in 34 years to score a triple-century when his side thrashed Pakistan by an innings and 47 runs in their first Test of the three-match series.
In the same Test, Root scored 262, and in doing so he passed Alastair Cook's previous England best of 12,472 career runs, placing him fifth on the all-time list.
Brook's career-best knock of 317 took him to 1,875 runs in 19 Tests and 31 innings ahead of the second encounter in Multan that starts on Monday.
The 25-year-old has a chance to become the fastest Englishman to 2,000 Test runs, beating the 22 matches and 33 innings of Herbert Sutcliffe in 1928.
And Anderson, who is England's all-time leading wicket taker in Test matches, showered praise on Brook, likening him to Kevin Pietersen.
"He's on the way to being in the top three that I've played with," Anderson said on his Tailenders podcast.
"It's Root, Pietersen and him. He's definitely got all the attributes to overtake them.
"He's just got everything. Without trying to big him up too much because he's still really early in his Test career.
"I do think that he's got the perfect amount of each of those two and that's what will make him the best that we've ever had."
Pietersen scored 8,181 runs when his 104-Test career ended in 2014, 170 fewer than Brook has managed after 19 Tests as a comparison.
England's stunning 823-7 declared was their highest total in Test cricket since 1938 as they took a 1-0 series lead against Pakistan on Friday.
The 556 England conceded in Pakistan’s first innings was the highest total any team had overturned to then go on and earn an innings victory.
Brook and Root shared a partnership of 454, England’s highest of all time for any wicket and the fourth-highest by any Test pair.
"The thing that's really similar between Joe and Harry is that they love batting," said Anderson. "They literally couldn't care less what format it is. They just want to bat.
"They want to have fun doing it. As much as Harry's the younger player and will be learning loads from Rooty, I still think Rooty learns from him as well.
"Joe's one of those sorts of players that wants to keep developing and bettering himself, and he does watch other players and try to add bits to his game.
"I'm sure he's doing that with Harry."
Stokes could return for England’s second Test against Pakistan, hints Pope
England stand-in captain Ollie Pope has hinted that Ben Stokes could return to the team for their second Test match against Pakistan in Multan, starting on Tuesday.
With Stokes still nursing a hamstring injury, England cruised to an emphatic innings victory against Pakistan at the same venue in the opener, inspired by the brilliant batting performances of Harry Brook (317) and Joe Root (262).
The win by an innings and 47 runs, which came early on the fifth day, saw the tourists become the first team in Test cricket history to concede more than 500 runs in the first innings but still end up winning the match by an innings.
Asked about team news for the second of the three Tests on the tour, Pope let slip that Stokes could be involved.
“I don’t know. I'm actually not 100 per cent sure,” he added.
“He's been training really well this week. He's as keen as ever to get playing again, so fingers crossed he's all good.”
Pope has deputised as England captain after full-time skipper Stokes suffered a hamstring injury in August which saw him miss the home Test series against Sri Lanka.
The 33-year-old was included in the England squad for the Pakistan tour and was expected to return for the first Test, but failed to recover in time as the visitors scripted cricketing history in Multan.
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