What Kyle Sinckler said to Owen Farrell directly after his game-changing try

Kyle Sinckler had a very propish request for Owen Farrell after scoring the try that swept England out of danger and into the World Cup semi-finals at Australia’s expense.

The Wallabies had fought back from 17-6 down to trail by a single point, only for Sinckler to pick a clever line onto Owen Farrell’s flat pass before showing his athleticism to race over in the 46th minute.

It was a turning point in England’s seventh successive win against Australia and the prop’s finest moment in a Red Rose jersey compelled coach Eddie Jones to compare him to a “runaway rhino”.

Adding to the significance was that Sinckler’s mum Donna was sat in the Oita Stadium stands to witness the 40-16 triumph.

“My mum came out, so she was happy. I saw her in the crowd, she was pretty emotional,” said Sinckler, who was brought up on a tough south London estate.

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“It’s been a long journey for me and her. A long, long journey. It’s good to see my mum out here, I’ve done her proud.

“On a personal level it was very special. Something we work hard on in training and something I try to bring to the party is my ball-carrying ability. It was quite nice that it all fell into plan.

“I was knackered afterwards. I said to Owen ‘take the minute-and-a-half for the conversion’ because I needed the rest!. That was a tough, tough Test match. Now we move on to next week.”

Fifteen minutes later and Sinckler was responsible for another key moment by ripping the ball from number eight Isi Naisarani as Australia launched a sustained assault.

England are through to the #RWC2019 quarter-finals

– @alexshawsport rates the players #ENGvARG https://t.co/yVCn20cspT

— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) October 19, 2019

“They were pounding away for ages. Their forwards were coming hard, I saw an opportunity and I backed myself and luckily it came off. It was a big part of my game,” Sinckler said.

“Fair play to Australia, that was hard graft, especially the first 20 minutes. They came out of the blocks flying and some of their forwards ran really, really hard.

“It was testament to us as a team and one of our biggest things is togetherness and how tight we are as a squad.

“It’s something we’ve consciously worked on for the past few months and you saw it today.

“Sticking to the plan, sticking to the process, always having belief in ourselves, belief in our coaches.

“After their try we stepped up the gears on our defence and our attack and we got the result.”

The scrum was a key battleground in which both teams enjoyed victories and defeats.

One series of reset scrums early in the match ended with Australia hooker Silatolu Latu patting Sinckler on the head in an attempt to wind him up.

A real head-scratcher. #ENGvAUS https://t.co/AUXeDNJbHG

— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) October 19, 2019

“That’s something I’ve really tried to own….my discipline and just being cool in the moment and that comes with experience,” said the tighthead, who is known for his combustible temperament.

“You’re going to have good scrums and bad scrums, or scrums where you don’t agree with the decision. It’s Test match rugby so you just have to get on with it.

“It’s always going to be that way, especially when you’re at tighthead. You get the rub of the green sometimes and other times you don’t.

“Australia have improved a lot in their scrum and our job as a front row was to keep going at them, keep going at them.

“Every scrum, don’t take a backwards step, no matter what the refereeing decision was. You saw in the end that we got our reward. We took their legs away.

“Fair play to Australia, they have improved a lot in that area but as an England pack we pride ourselves on our scrum.”