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'The Springboks straightened us' - Maro Itoje's take on England's loss

Maro Itoje embraces Tom Curry after England's loss in Yokohama (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Maro Itoje has blamed England giving away too many penalties for their World Cup final defeat to South Africa. Beaten 32-12 on the scoreboard, England conceded ten penalties to South Africa’s eight during the loss in Yokohama. 

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Five of those indiscretions came at the scrum and Springbok kicker Handre Pollard made England pay off the tee, as he landed six kicks over the course of the 80 minutes. “Probably need a bit more time to process everything, to be honest,” reflected Itoje when asked his thoughts on the result. “The thing that stuck out obviously was we gave away too many penalties.

We didn’t get our game going today, unfortunately, unlike the previous game (against New Zealand). We didn’t come out of the blocks firing like we planned to.”

It was Itoje’s accidental collision that knocked out Kyle Sinckler in the third minute, forcing England into the change that saw Dan Cole come on and struggle at the scrum.

“He [Sinckler] is a big player for us and he’s had some really big performances for us. I’m not too sure what it was. We just didn’t start with the tenacity we planned on starting with. At this point, it’s hard to put a finger on what exactly that is. Sport is cruel sometimes.

(Continue reading below…)

“We’ve been on a good journey. From where we started to where we are now, the team’s grown tighter and tighter. This is the most fun I’ve had in an England side. We’re trying to draw the positives out of the journey.

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“Very disappointed, gutted we couldn’t get the job done today. It’s meant a lot to a lot of people.  We can work hard for the next opportunity.

“Congratulations to the Springboks. They straightened us. They didn’t allow us to get our game going. We definitely did try hard but we weren’t getting the outcomes we were looking to get.

“I definitely felt we were in the right place. World Cup finals don’t happen too often. Throughout the whole weekend, we were pumped. Everyone was really excited for the opportunity.

“Each game throws up different challenges. Coming into this game we weren’t looking to match last week. We were looking to get better. That’s been the mantra of our team, the mantra of our squad.”

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J
JW 39 minutes ago
Let's be real about these All Blacks

I didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.


What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.


Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.


There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..

Whilst these All Blacks aren’t blowing teams off the park like during the 2010s, they are nuggety and resourceful and don’t wilt. They are prepared to win the hard way, accumulating points by any means necessary.

and..

The other top sides in the world struggled to put them away. France and South Africa both could have well been defeated on home soil.

I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍

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