England's infamous V-Shaped response to the All Blacks' haka before their Rugby World Cup semi-final, was meant to be a semi-circle, players have revealed.
England stars Ben Youngs, Tom Curry, Manu Tuilagi and Joe Marler confessed to the mistake during an appearance on 'The Jonathan Ross Show' in the UK.
"We met the night before and we said, 'look, it is a challenge and we want to face the challenge and make sure that they know that we are up for it'," said halfback Youngs.
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"So we said, 'let's get into a semicircle and all of that', and a few of the lads were still confused by that. So we were like, 'look, this is where you have got to stand'.
Ross was bemused and was staggered that the players were confused by the concept of a semicircle.
Prop Marler elaborated on the confusion his teammate’s plan caused.
"The issue was, Ben drew it up the night before… He got up and he did it on a flipchart and he marked it all out with Xs and Os.
"The issue I had with it is I look at that board and thought, “It’s not to scale"... I thought we were meant to be closer than what the picture said.
"[I went over the line] which I thought we were all going to do but then I looked back and they weren’t doing it but I thought, I've already committed now."
England went onto win the match 19-7, but lost in the final to South Africa.
They were later fined a "four-figure sum" for challenging the haka, and ignoring officials' requests to move back behind the halfway line.
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen admitted after the match that their response was "fantastic".
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