'How could we not qualify for the semi-finals when we hadn’t lost?'

The tunnel area at Athlone Stadium on Tuesday afternoon was quite an awkward place for England to be. They had just been pegged to a 22-all draw by the Junior Wallabies in the afternoon’s opening match at the ground, denying them the win that there and then would have sealed their semi-final progress as the lone best runner-up.

Instead, the draw – their second in three pool outings – left them crestfallen and in need of a favour elsewhere to get them into the last four and it initially didn’t look like materialising. England had finished on 10 match points with a points difference of +46 and it left the door ajar for New Zealand to surpass them.

The Baby Blacks went into their game in Stellenbosch knowing that victory by a 67-point margin would leave them on 10 match points and a points difference of +47, enabling them to finish better placed than England to reach the semi-finals.

We gave U20 New Zealand rugby players cameras and let them do whatever they want | Fuel Me

We gave U20 New Zealand rugby players cameras and let them do whatever they want | Fuel Me

They generated a first-half head of steam and a 38-12 interval advantage gave them a shot at securing the margin of victory necessary to progress. However, they failed to ‘win’ the second half by the desired 41 points and the 62-19 result would have been loudly cheered by the England squad watching on after they had returned to their Cape Town hotel, the accommodation they are ironically sharing with the Japanese for the duration of the tournament.

Before that result was confirmed and before they had bussed their way back into the city from Athlone, head coach Mark Mapletoft described the prospect of England getting knocked out as frustratingly similar to what happened to his country’s football team at the 1982 World Cup where they were eliminated despite not losing a match in five outings, two in the second round group stage.

The late try that grabbed Australia their 22-all draw versus England which confirmed Ireland as Pool B winners. England must now wait to see if they qualify for the semi-finals as a best runner-up. #WorldRugbyU20s pic.twitter.com/4UViVYoJcb

— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) July 4, 2023

“I remember as a kid growing up watching England in the ’82 World Cup in football in Spain and we didn’t lose a game and went out,” he explained to RugbyPass. “That was one of my first childhood memories watching sport, thinking it was unjust, how could we not qualify for the semi-finals when we hadn’t lost? But hey, it is what it is. We have done enough to get 10 points. Whether that is enough we will see.”

That agonising wait was ultimately worth England’s while but they know following their inconsistent effort versus Australia that they have plenty of areas to spruce up between now and Sunday’s semi-final versus France, the team they lost 7-42 to in the U20s Six Nations at The Rec in Bath just 17 weeks ago.

“It [the feeling] is one of frustration, the lads are down,” admitted Mapletoft in the immediate aftermath of their match versus the Junior Wallabies. “They felt they could have, should have won the game but that was exactly the same when we came off the pitch against Ireland. There was no doubt our performance against Ireland was much better.

“We didn’t exert enough pressure with the wind behind us in that second half. The wind doesn’t win you the game but it certainly gives you a good advantage. We started the second half well but then just fell off and a lack of accuracy and a lack of discipline, you could bundle all that up.

“We will have to reflect as coaches to see if we got our preparation right on that, whether we feel we could have done something different, but to be in the driving seat with some 15 minutes to go, it was disappointing.

“We have got get ourselves cleaned up and work out what happens next. We talked about it this week. Normally you have a scenario where you have a rough idea of who you are going to play but clearly we have no idea who we are going to play.

“We will be a little more direct with our review process and then settle down and watch the games that have a bearing on whether we quality in the top four. We know we have done enough but we haven’t delivered and that is the frustration.

“I was pleased with a few elements of our defence, we worked incredibly hard in terms of getting our spacing better and making more effective tackles, but where we need to look at ourselves is how efficient we can be when we get 20, 30 metres from their line.

“We have definitely taken massive strides forward, probably disappointed we haven’t delivered in some of the areas we were really good at in the Six Nations. If we had been able to gel the two together we would probably have ended up with maybe two wins and a draw or maybe three wins but look, we haven’t and we have got to live with that and we have got to wait now and take our medicine and see what round four brings.”

Skipper Lewis Chessum, again speaking at a time when England’s semi-final fate hadn’t been confirmed, added: “That’s definitely not what we wanted. We came here to win like we do every week. We probably lost our game plan a little bit, put pressure on ourselves. Fair play to the Aussie boys, they put us under pressure.

“Their kicking game was very good, we probably didn’t relieve it enough. Definitely, it wasn’t what we wanted, we came here for a win but dead proud of these boys, no matter what we stuck at it, things went wrong but the boys stuck at it.

“To play in this tournament with this group of boys, the effort they put in at training and in these games, the effort is outstanding. The result didn’t go our way, but if you can guarantee one thing we will keep fighting. It’s heads up, we have got to review and go again. We can’t dwell on it too much.”