Rugby World Cup 2019: England’s ‘Kamikaze Kids’ Tom Curry and Sam Underhill set out to electrocute Argentina

By Curry’s own admission, England’s two flankers are ‘a bit weird’, but they bring balance to a back row that has the potential to emulate the great 2003 line-up of Hill, Back and Dallaglio in Japan

England's ‘Kamikaze Kids’ are causing far more disruption at the Rugby World Cup than simply at breakdown, with Tom Curry and Sam Underhill set to be unleashed once more on Argentina to book their place in the quarter-finals.

If England win in Toyko on Saturday, they will guarantee a place in the last eight and effectively sends the Pumas home – something that can be confirmed on Sunday if France defeat Tonga in their Pool C clash.

For Argentina, it is very much a Rugby World Cup final come early, but England have no plans in letting them off the hook for their early slip-up against the French and plan on destroying their 2019 hopes once and for all with Curry and Underhill leading the charge.

The use of two natural openside flankers is nothing new – Australia continue to deploy Michael Hooper and David Pocock while New Zealand boss Steve Hansen has started to select Ardie Savea together with Sam Cane – but it is an untried and untested model in English rugby where the blindside position has always been a defined role.

“I feel the game has moved into another cycle of contestability,” explained Eddie Jones on his decision to move Curry to the No 6 shirt. “The referees want low penalty counts and when you have low penalty counts, it means you have a high contest which also means you have high kicking. We thought: ‘how can we be best equipped in that area?’

“Curry is big enough to play six. He’s got the sense to play six. We thought we’d give a go in the World Cup warm-up games. He’s adjusted really well to it.”

Jones’s words tell you a lot about the rugby intelligence of a man who remains England’s youngest player, in what is also the youngest back row named in the professional era. At 21 years old, Curry is being asked a great deal to learn a new trade while on the big stage that is a World Cup.

Having examples to look at helps, and Curry has mentioned his admiration for Pocock in the recent past while out in Japan. But when you have a Rugby World Cup winner guiding you in the form of team manager and mentor Richard Hill, it’s safe to say that Curry is in safe hands.

Hill was part of England’s most talented and well-balanced back row, forming a formidable partnership with openside flanker Neil Back and No 8 Lawrence Dallaglio – and not always in that order. The ability to move Hill to the back of the scrum or to the openside, or Dallaglio to six, stemmed from what Sir Clive Woodward wanted the balance of his pack to be, and Jones appears to be doing the same.

“Ultimately, it is working as a three in terms of the back row, making sure everyone is getting on the ball, talking about the breakdown, making sure the six and seven are spreading the workload in carrying,” Curry explained.

“I have had a few conversations with Richard Hill and Mark Wilson. I spoke to him about how he found it and what he thought about it, especially the way Pocock adapted his role. But at the end of the day I don’t think there is anything massively different. I want to stay true to myself and how I want to play and from that adapt to what the team needs after that.

“The toughest thing is probably the edge defence. Naturally you want to make a tackle and then get up and make another tackle but you need to try to work the big lads inside you and try to keep them all safe, and then try to get yourself into those positions out wide. That is pretty difficult sometimes.

“Rugby is a thinking game and this is just a different thought of thinking. But I try to stay true to myself.”

Tom Curry and Sam Underhill, England's 'Kamikaze Kids', start against Argentina (Reuters)

Yet there is more to Curry and Underhill than meets the eye. The pair dubbed by Jones as his ‘Kamizake Kids’ have forged an “electric” bond that spreads way beyond the rugby field. Their youth and exuberance when with England shines through brighter than most, to the point that by Curry’s own admission, the pair are considered “quite weird”.

Another trait of Curry’s is rather embarrassingly his sleepwalking, which Underhill stitched him up with by revealing it publicly. “He had one night with George Ford, he had to be moved because he was sleepwalking so much and just being a nuisance. I think he was in front of a TV trying to knock it over.”

But thankfully there are fewer sleepless nights in Japan for the young Sale Sharks flanker. "There has been none – I have had five-star reviews from George Kruis and Billy Vunipola,” he added.

“I try to walk out of the room but I didn’t get out of it, I walked into the TV. But the last few weeks have been good. I thought it was more my brother to be honest, I didn’t realise I had it. It happens occasionally, but it’s not really a thing. It’s just horrible timing that it has happened now because everyone thinks I always do it, but it’s pretty rare.

“It sounds like at 12 o’clock at night we’re all running around the house but that doesn’t happen.”

Curry admits he and Underhill are 'a bit weird' among the rest of the squad (Getty)

Yet that has not stopped Joe Marler – the man tasked with England’s in-house fines system – to come up with a unique punishment for the squad. " One of the fines is taking Sam and I both for lunch. It probably doesn’t reflect too well on the both of us! It’s probably one of the worst fines.

“We are probably too good company, too electric. Probably people can't handle it. He is a bit calmer. He is very relaxed and chilled, I am a bit less relaxed and chilled. That's the biggest [thing]. Apart from that, we are both pretty weird."

It reflects what they offer to the team on the pitch, an electricity that Jones will hope shocks Argentina if they sleepwalk into the traps set by Curry and Underhill. Against Tonga, they combined for 26 tackles and three turnovers – enough to suggest that it is a trial worth sticking with but nothing yet to shout about. But if they can reap success against a much more established pack such as Argentina’s, people may just start talking about Curry, Underhill and Vunipola in the same way as great back rows of days gone by.