It was Sir Alex Ferguson's belief that the match kicked off in the press conference the day before.

That was when he relayed his strongest messages: to his team, to his opponents, to the match officials, to anyone he thought stood in the way of Manchester United's victory.

Eddie Jones has gone even earlier in the build-up to his date with the All Blacks.

Eddie Jones has gone early in his build-up to England's semi-final date with the All Blacks

At 10.15am Tokyo time on Tuesday, it was announced he would be behind the microphones again later that day. So would his captain, Owen Farrell. So would John Mitchell, England's defence coach and a former coach of New Zealand.

Jones had already spoken after the quarter-final victory over Australia. He had held court on Sunday morning, too. So this was no mere charm offensive. This was his attempt to score points in Saturday's semi-final before a ball had been kicked. And he didn't disappoint.

From spies in the tower blocks, to punters in the press box, Jones fired every gun in his arsenal. And he talked pressure. Pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure. It was all on New Zealand, apparently.

None on England, the underdogs. They could relax, take it easy at their Disneyland base. The happiest place on Earth, as the slogan goes. And there England reside, wishing upon a star, hoping their dreams come true.

Was anyone falling for it? Not really. Jones would throw out the line about noticing a spy in the flats overlooking England's training pitch, then say he didn't care about it.

One minute he would announce the weight of expectation that was on a New Zealand team going for its third straight World Cup win, the next he would claim the All Blacks do not receive the same scrutiny as England.

It was Sir Alex Ferguson's belief the match kicked off in the press conference the day before

FIVE OTHER SPY CONTROVERSIES THAT ROCKED SPORT 2005 - Football: Mourinho's mole Former Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas revealed that Jose Mourinho used to send him undercover to training grounds to compile a dossier on their opponents. His report on Newcastle in 2005 contained 24 graphics. 'Jose will leave nothing to chance,' he said. Villas-Boas helped Mourinho set up an Opponent Observation Department during his time at Stamford Bridge. 2007 - F1: The original spygate McLaren were fined $100m and disqualified from the F1 constructors' championship after disgruntled Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney leaked a 780-page dossier of his team's entire technical data to their rivals' chief designer Mike Coughlan. Ferrari only found out when Coughlan's wife tried to photocopy the documents at a local shop and the owner got suspicious. 2007 - NFL: Patriots pay the price The New England Patriots were caught videoing the New York Jets defensive coaches' signals from an unauthorised on-field location during their game in September 2007. The tapes were seized and Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 for authorising the filming while the club were hit with a $250,000 fine and docked their first-round pick in the 2008 Draft. 2013 - Football: 'Rambo under a tree' Genoa youth team coach Luca De Pra hid in bushes wearing camoflauge gear while spying on local rivals Sampdoria's training session from a small woodland area next to the pitches. Sampdoria claimed De Pra was hiding 'like Rambo under a tree' in full military gear and was chased off by members of staff. Genoa insisted De Pra acted alone and suspended him. 2019 - Football: Bielsa's man in bushes Police were called to Derby's training ground after Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa sent a spy to watch his opponents ahead of their Championship game in January. Bielsa took responsibility and admitted to spying on all of Leeds' opponents, while also revealing all of Derby's secrets in a remarkable press conference. Leeds won the game 2-0 but later lost to Frank Lampard's Derby in the play-offs. Advertisement

'You look at it, mate, one week ago, I was going to get sacked, Owen Farrell couldn't kick, we couldn't play, someone wrote there was going to be blood on the walls at Twickenham,' said Fast Eddie.

'Are you assuming the All Blacks will read this?' asked an unmistakably Kiwi voice. 'Well, someone has to ask them a question because the New Zealand media doesn't,' Fast Eddie replied.

'You guys are just fans with a keyboard. The English media? We deal with a completely different situation.'

Oh, how we laughed. Fans with typewriters. It was a jibe first aimed at journalists covering the Scotland football team at the 1978 World Cup. Jones knew that little fizzer, at least, would get back, even if folk were not entirely buying the thought of an All Blacks team raddled with self-doubt and fears of defeat, having last lost a Rugby World Cup game on October 6, 2007.

There are two players in the All Blacks squad, Kieran Read and Sam Whitelock, who have a combined total of 241 international caps and have never known what it is like to lose a match at a World Cup.

This is what England are up against in Yokohama on Saturday. The behemoths of modern sport. It would be an almost unprecedented run of dominance if New Zealand could land three Rugby World Cups in succession.

The England coach was in a provocative mood as he talked about the semi-final showdown

Nobody has done it in football — the trophy hasn't even been retained since Brazil won it in 1962 — and only Australia in cricket. Yet the Cricket World Cup is not the epitome of the sport.

Jones is right, then, in considering the All Blacks' dominance unique. Whether this means they are crushed by the pressure of maintaining it is another matter; but if the thought wasn't already there, Jones is hoping to have planted it.

'We don't have any pressure, mate,' he said. 'Put up your hand if you think we can win. There you go, so no one. No one thinks we can win. There are 120 million Japanese people out there whose second team are the All Blacks, too. So there's no pressure on us.

'We've just got to have a great week, enjoy this opportunity, relax and train hard, whereas they've got to be thinking about how they're looking for their third World Cup. So that brings some pressure.

'Our guys have experienced it on the Lions tour. They went down there, they played in their back yard, they know they're human.

'They bleed, they drop balls, they miss tackles like every other player. New Zealand talk about walking towards pressure. Well this week the pressure is going to be chasing them down the street. It's our job to take their time and space away.

Jones suggested the that there were 'spies' in the tower blocks outside England training

'We've got nothing to lose, that's the exciting thing for us. We can just go out there and play our game.

'The busiest bloke in Tokyo this week will be Gilbert Enoka, their mental skills coach. They have to deal with all this pressure of winning it three times. It is always harder to defend a World Cup and it is potentially the last game for their greatest coach and their greatest captain and they will be thinking about all of those things.'

Will they? Well, within hours, the spying accusation, the bagging of the New Zealand media pack and Jones' 'cunning plan' to unsettle the All Blacks were all running on Kiwi newspaper websites.

And just in case anyone believes that no one thinks England can win, the time Jones gave between asking his question and concluding the vox pop would have required the hand speed of a Japanese centre to register a vote.

Nothing was left to chance in this address, not even the opinion in the room. These agenda-heavy briefings are rarely subtle.

It was before a Champions League quarter-final tie with Inter Milan in 1999 that Ferguson gave his thoughts on Italian football. 'When Italians tell me it's pasta I check under the sauce to see if it is,' he said.

Protecting a 2-0 lead from the first leg, before the return tie Ferguson heaped praise on referee Gilles Veissiere, highlighting how strong he would need to be against Inter's forwards Ronaldo and Ivan Zamorano and their tendency to find the floor.

Ferguson relayed his strongest messages to his team and opponents in the press conference

The game in the San Siro ended 1-1 with Zamorano having an appeal for what appeared a blatant penalty by Peter Schmeichel turned down. Ferguson made a point of rushing to the middle to thank Veissiere personally at the end of the match. 'The referee was fantastic,' he said. 'That's one of the best you'll ever get.'

What Veissiere could not have known was that 24 hours before he blew his whistle to begin the game, Ferguson had already started playing his own.

Jones the same. The question that sparked the vague accusations of spying was not about that topic at all, but a far less incendiary enquiry about the dossier his 13 British and Irish Lions contributed to, having returned from New Zealand three summers ago.

The draw for this tournament was made on May 10, 2017, meaning Jones has known for more than two years that winning the pool stage would, in all likelihood, put him on course for collision with the All Blacks in the semi-final. Jones admits he began preparations for this fixture on that date.

'We've prepared for this game for two and a half years,' he confirmed. 'I can remember being in Kyoto for the draw and quickly you could do the mathematics — even as an Australian — that we were going to play New Zealand in a semi-final. Progressively we've built a game we think can take New Zealand.'

That's what international management is about.

Jones insists he has been preparing for the All Blacks for the last two-and-a-half years

Before the 1996 European Championship, Terry Venables spent a disproportionate amount of time watching a club football team, Ajax, because Holland played like them and that was the key game in England's group.

The result of all that research: a 4-1 win at Wembley, remembered as one of English football's greatest nights.

That's not going to happen against the All Blacks, mind. Even those who didn't get time to raise their hands are not calling this as anything less than close.

'We are going to have to go the distance because they will fight right to the end,' said Mitchell. 'That is their nature and we are well aware of it.' Indeed, that is the bottom line.

Jones may be adept in verbal battles but the weekend brings a real one. Ferguson was brilliant at winning those, too. He knew what to do when the talking stopped, which is what separates the slick from the great.