Heyes says England need fans’ help to seal ‘massive’ New Zealand win

Prop forward Joe Heyes on Friday urged the Twickenham crowd to play their part by roaring England to victory over New Zealand.

England on Saturday bid for a first win over the All Blacks  since a dramatic 2019 World Cup semi-final in Japan and their first on home soil in 13 years.

“When our backs are against the wall or we’re going well, the crowd here really does rev you up and it helps because you are blowing,” Leicester’s Heyes, who will be playing New Zealand for the first time in his 17-cap career, told a pre-match press conference on Friday.

“To know they’re there supporting you is massive for us. You feel their support 100 percent. Any win at Allianz (Twickenham) is massive for us and to have never played the All Blacks makes it super exciting as well.”

Saturday’s match won’t be the first time Heyes has witnessed the haka, the Maori war challenge adopted as a pre-game ritual by New Zealand national rugby teams.

“The first time I watched the haka was in Beziers (southern France) at an Under-20s tournament and I was just in complete awe of it,” he said.

“Ever since I started playing rugby, it was all about the All Blacks. What a team they were. So I’m super excited to play against them.”

England are chasing a 10th successive victory on Saturday and a win over rugby union superpower New Zealand would be a signficant measure of the progress they have made under coach Steve Borthwick in 2025.  

“Away from statistics and all those things, we’ve developed a really good feel in the team,” the 26-year-old Heyes said. 

“We know that we can trust one another and each lad is going to be incredibly selfless in their performance.”

“It’s really exciting to be part of a team where we work really hard for each other. We’ve been together for a short time now and I feel like we’ve already become really close.”

“We want to go out and win. The lads know what to do to get the result we want.”