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Lawes, Itoje outline where it agonisingly went wrong for England
By Liam Heagney
Neither Courtney Lawes nor Maro Itoje were shy in Saturday night’s post-game mixed zone when it came to identifying what they felt was the reason for England not dethroning South Africa, the Rugby World Cup title holders.
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The 2019 champions chased down a 15-6 deficit in the final minutes to clinch a 15-16 comeback win and book their place in next Saturday’s final against the All Blacks.
Both Lawes and Itoje were standout England performers, rising to the occasion and getting their team to within a whisker of reaching a decider no one gave them a chance of making before the tournament started.
England led 12-6 at the interval, but Lawes said: “We gave away too many penalties in the second half. Fine margins, it is one of those things. We gave it everything we had and we can be quite proud of that.”
According to Itoje, the half-time message was: “Just to execute the game plan, to try to raise the intensity. We knew it was going to go up, so it was about executing our game plan and being disciplined.
“There were things we could have been more alive to,” he added, reflecting on the decisive concession of 10 late points. “They scored from that lineout move, we should have been more alive to that, and a couple of penalties up the field where we should have been a bit sharper.
“But they are a good team. Every team you play against is going to have a moment. We are just gutted… The whole plan was to put them under pressure. We accomplished that in the first half, we wanted to challenge them and we did that. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.”
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Back to Lawes. “Their set-piece came through in the end, that is something they can very much rely on. Their bench definitely brought an impact onto the pitch. we knew that could be the case and we unfortunately didn’t deal with it well enough.
“It’s disappointing because we should have won it. We were the better team on the day but congrats to them. They found a way to win and that is what you have to do sometimes.”
Itoje added: “Very sad. A lot of effort, a lot of passion, a lot of time and dedication has gone into this World Cup from our side, but I’m proud of the effort, how hard we fought out there. We were a couple of minutes away from executing the game plan pretty well. It was sad but we have to dust ourselves off and move on.”
The 22-year-old George Martin packed down for just his fourth Test start. Lawes was impressed by how the rookie played.
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“I just spoke to him and said I’m very much looking forward to watching his career. Incredible game, it just shows his maturity as a player. He’s 22, the same age as me when I had my first World Cup. He is going to be here for a long time.”
England, though, aren’t yet finished at France 2023 as they have next Friday’s bronze medal match versus Argentina to contest.
Lawes insisted his team will get back up for that game against a team they beat 27-10 in Marseille at the start of the tournament last month.
“I don’t think it will be too difficult (to pick the boys up). It’s really important for us to finish on a high. Obviously, we don’t know the team yet but a lot of boys that are on this tour won’t represent their country again, so it’s very important we finish where we started.”
England have played the 5 WC knockout games vs the Boks. That is 400 minutes. And have yet to score a try. England focus so much on disruption and stopping the Boks to play and their tactics work very well in stopping the Boks. But their lack of ambition to score a try means they cannot get enough points on the board, and with the Boks defense, even if they play poorly, means they stay in the fight. And then they only need 15 mins to put enough attack phases together to beat England. Maybe the Poms should look at themselves and up their attack and ambition and they might then win.
this brings perspective to outsiders ranting about the ref - over 80 mins Eng scored 15, Boks 16. There is no question Boks gained ascendency in last 1/4 (often the 3rd quarter but that’s credit to Eng) Boks found a way, principally thro Ox, RG and Handre. Re the final penalty - clear knee to ground in front of Ben, that changes height and provides advantage.
Another key moment mistake which I believe contributed to England’s defeat was Farrell back chatting the referee after a penalty was awarded. O’Keefe moved the penalty 10 metres up field as a consequence enabling it to be in range for the South African goal kicker. Without Farrell’s back chat it is unlikely that a goal kick would have been successful.
I’m not surprised the English media have failed to highlight this. In England Farrell is regarded as a God who can do no wrong. I’m delighted that in 2027 he will be 36 and probably to old to be selected and therefore will probably never win a RWC Winner’s Medal.
A few years ago, before you could change more than half the side with bench players, we saw a different type of rugby. In days gone by we’d see real champions of the game come to the fore, players who were able to dig deep for the the last fifteen or ten minutes of the game, hold their side together - real warrior stuff. Now days with a swap of more than half a team, the whole dynamic has changed, and in my opinion not for the better.
Plain and simple where it all went wrong. England have got to become hungry for the try line! 3’ - Farrell kicks the first penalty
10’ - Farrell adds a second
24’ - Farrell extends England’s lead to six points
39’ - Farrell puts England further ahead before half time with another penalty
53’ - Farrell kicks a drop goal, England’s final points of the semi-final Dismal!
Lack of killer instinct for me. And a lack of variation in the kicking game, and not much thought of trying to run the forwards or off the forwards. There is actually more than one way to play rugby in the rain..
That last kick of Steward I believe the last few minutes if you must kick make sure you kick towards the opponents goal line let them start from there
If Dan Cole and Joe Marler had been able to continue for the whole of the second half ….. ?