“We’ve been pretty good with our preparation and are going in the direction we want to go”.
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The immediate suggestion following the latest claims was that such an incident would cause tension to rise between Australia and England ahead of the Twickenham clash, in which a loss would force an embarrassing pool-stage exit for the host nation.
Pressure can bring the best out in a team – you only have to look at Wales on Saturday to find evidence of that. “We’ve worked very hard to put ourselves in a position to attack any game, let alone this one”.
“I’ll offer whatever I can – they [England] have people I have played with and spent some time with”, he said.
“Everybody is in our thoughts because we have had an incredibly bad run of luck with injuries”.
And it seems something of a leap of faith to imagine they could turn the situation around to such an extent that they could become the first team to lose a match and win the tournament.
So many coaches these days are robotic in their use of pre-planned replacements that you can nearly guess them to the minute.
That was as good as it got.
The 31-year-old now has All Blacks legend Jonah Lomu in his sights after capping a remarkable global comeback with a five-minute second-half double in Sunday’s 65-3 thrashing of Uruguay. Our defence didn’t react to what was happening in front of them. “It may not be overturned, we’d only do it if it was the right thing to do”. We knew how tough this group would be from minute one, and we set out to win every game. Personally, I would have asked Farrell to take the kick.
“Any other game you’d be thinking the same”.
“That won’t change, we’ll recover from today”.
“We have to take into account that Uruguay has not played in the World Cup in 12 years so maybe the difference is not as great now”. “I enjoyed that part of the game”. What are we going to do? While Saturday was hugely disappointing, there were some reasons to be cheerful. He had quite a bit of ball on Sunday, with 84 passes, and his effort will likely still give him a chance to make an impact off the bench for the England game.
“The reality is that England are home team so they’re going to be favourites”.
He did better with his passing, however, setting up three tries. We have to establish that again against Australia who will have noted the improvement in those areas.
“It is a short turnaround, but there are teams that have had shorter turnarounds”.
If Vunipola and Morgan are ruled out and Wood is cited and subsequently suspended, England will be facing a crisis in the back row with Chris Robshaw and James Haskell their only recognised options in the position, although Sam Burgess has played at blindside flanker for Bath.
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A disappointing end to Skelton’s solid performance came with a shoulder injury midway through the second half, replaced by Kane Douglas.
