Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

'I just broke down in tears' - Chris Robshaw's biggest England career regret... and it still hurts

Chris Robshaw /Getty Images

Former England captain Chris Robshaw has said his decision to go for the corner against Wales at the 2015 World Cup is the one thing he would change in his career.

ADVERTISEMENT

Robshaw joined Christina Mahon and his former Harlequins teammate Jamie Roberts on RugbyPass Offload this week, and was asked what would be the one thing he would have done differently over his 43 caps as England captain.

Roberts quickly joked “go for posts,” referring to the 2015 World Cup pool stage encounter at Twickenham, where Robshaw opted to go for the corner with two minutes remaining when England were trailing 28-25. England were driven into touch from the ensuing lineout, leading to a historic win for Roberts’ Wales and England crashing out of the tournament in the pool stages.

Video Spacer

Chris Robshaw on his biggest career regret:

Video Spacer

Chris Robshaw on his biggest career regret:

Robshaw agreed, and discussed the fallout from that decision on a personal level.

“Unfortunately, hindsight is a wonderful thing,” the San Diego Legion flanker said.

“Do we go back to that decision and go for posts? Do we give ourselves the opportunity to get the three? Would we have got it, who knows? But you potentially look at that opportunity and you try that.

“I think that would be the one thing that I always look back on my England career and definitely would try and change. Because you don’t know those butterfly moments and hopefully that would have a big effect on the game and the result of the World Cup and who knows where we’d be now.

“That was definitely a big decision. I’ve moved a long way since but that World Cup is a scar I will always wear. Whenever we speak about it, whenever people talk about it, it’s always a tough time for me, a tough time for a lot of those players.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I remember actually when we played Wales in the first game post World Cup, back at Twickenham, and as you can imagine there was a huge amount of speculation about that game. “Is it a revenge mission?”

“What about the World Cup?” We won the game, and only just won the game in the end, and we were doing a lap of honour and I just broke down in tears. I just had to get in the changing room, I just had to get back in. I just couldn’t control myself.

“All these emotions came out of me and so many of the guys came up to me and said “look, we didn’t realise how much it affected you and how much of a burden and a toll it took on you.” And me, personally, I didn’t share well enough. I was going through the motions at my club, put a huge amount of strain on my wife, my friends, my family, my teammates probably and it was definitely a massively tough period for me.”

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 2 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

286 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Cheslin Kolbe backed to end 16-year wait Cheslin Kolbe backed to end 16-year wait
Search