Defeat to Australia at Twickenham ended England’s hopes of escaping Pool A, making them the first host nation not to reach the knockout stages. “Everyone put so much effort in but we’re sorry we let everyone down”, said Lancaster, who replaced Martin Johnson after England’s bad 2011 World Cup in New Zealand when they went out in the quarterfinals.
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“We knew how tough this group was going to be right from the start, and not just with England, Australia and ourselves, because Fiji are a tough proposition as well”, Gatland said Sunday.
When I saw him in the press room afterwards I simply asked: “Was that Sam’s fault too”.
As CEO, Ritchie will not be immune from criticism in the World Cup post-mortem but said this is a time for “calmness, consideration and reflection”.
These are the same sycophants who fail to remember that when Woodward trusted in youth in 1998 they had more than 70 points put on them by the Wallabies on the rightly sainted Jonny Wilkinson’s debut.
“We’re very proud of the guys, the way the team performed”.
The 33-13 loss follows a 28-25 defeat to Wales and Wood could not hide his disappointment at their recent form on home soil.
Lancaster dropped George Ford, England’s starting flyhalf for the past year and orchestrator of the team’s emboldened attacking game plan, for the crucial matches against Wales and Australia, and named his 18th different flyhalf-centers combination against the Wallabies.
“But we need to be clear that this is not a time for knee-jerk reaction”. Lancaster deserves longer in his job, but it will take fearless men to defy the clamour for change.
It was sweet payback for Australia’s scrum embarrassment at the 2007 World Cup, where England marched all over the Wallabies and bullied them out of the set-piece contest.
He added: “It’s great that we have qualified, but you have got to feel for other people involved in other teams because there is a huge amount at stake”. So we apologise to them, and credit to Australia as well. We have got a big Test match against Wales coming up, and then a quarter-final after that.
Vunipola is reported to have said that Farrell did the coaching, not Lancaster, and made England play like a rugby league side.
“You don’t want to lose any game throughout a World Cup”.
“We knew there would be a lot of pain, because we are in England’s backyard”. I’m not going to change what I do because we won a game.
“It is not the time to make a decision like that”.
Carling, who as captain in 1991 led England to the World Cup final at Twickenham, thinks England have underachieved during Lancaster’s four years in charge but that the blame does not lie exclusively at his door – bringing into question the roles played by assistants Andy Farrell, Graham Rowntree and Mike Catt.
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Australia softened their hardline stance before the World Cup and their final try on Saturday was scored by Matt Giteau, a Toulon team-mate of Armitage. “I apologise that we didn’t have enough”, he reflected.
