Giant winger Cokanasiga is prepared for pressure of playing for England after becoming ‘more mature’

Giant winger Joe Cokanasiga insists he is now prepared for the pressure of the England jersey after struggling with early comparisons to Jonah Lomu.

Cokanasiga was parachuted into Eddie Jones’ plans for the 2019 World Cup after scoring five tries in his first six caps.

His powerful run has been compared to All Blacks legend Lomu, but the youngster was stricken with an injury and struggled to make an impact in Japan.

Now four years older and wiser, he’s dabbled in mindfulness and cut out sweets to get into his best shape for the upcoming competition in France.

“It’s different for me because it’s my second. I feel I’m a lot more mature, I kind of know what’s coming,” said the 25-year-old.

He believes he now knows how to control his emotions and will give his best for England

Cokanasiga lost 4 kg over the summer and worked with his girlfriend to improve his diet

“Looking back, I wish I knew a lot more so I could handle it better. When it all happened, it was “Oh, this is unreal”, and then when you get dropped off, you feel like this is the end of the world, but in reality it isn’t. Now I know how to control my emotions around it and ignore certain things.

Cokanasiga lost 4 kg over the summer and worked with his girlfriend Rosie to improve his off-season diet, including limiting sugary sweets.

He competes with the likes of Cadan Murley, Jonny May and Henry Arundell to fight his way into Steve Borthwick’s final squad, having worked closely with a sports psychologist to prepare.

“I’ve been doing a lot more mindfulness work, discovering my ‘why,'” Cokanasiga said. Lots of breathing exercises. One thing I got into was journaling before going to sleep – having a nice debrief after a long week of training, or just writing it down before competitions. I worked with Katie Warriner and that was the only thing I struggled with. The mind stuff has helped me a lot, especially this whole summer. It has made me more determined and hungry.

“It’s a long process, going through my whole life from when I was born, how I grew up. My “why” has always been there, it’s just capitalizing on it. My “Why: is always my family, but you forget you are also playing for yourself. I always play for the young Joe who wanted to be in that Rugby World Cup. I think back to 2015 and was a mascot for Fiji in that first game [against England], standing there and thinking “I want to do this, I want to play at Twickenham”. I like to think back and play for young Joe.”