There’s no embarrassment in losing to a side at their peak – just win it next time

ON Saturday evening I was in the stadium waiting for England’s warmup to begin. I waited. And I waited.

Normally an hour before kick-off Elliot Daly, George Ford and Owen Farrell are out there going through their kicking routine. Not this time.

Ten minutes passed, still nothing. At that point I asked if the game had been delayed for some reason. “No,” came the reply.

Finally they appeared. Normally they would stroll out on to the field, this time they ran and were straight into their warm-up at a pace that wasn’t normal.

I was astonished that they were late. Things go wrong and England subsequently blamed heavy traffic but I don’t understand how they could be that late for a World Cup final.

It was the worst possible way to start the biggest day of most of their rugby lives. And then the game began and, within three minutes, Kyle Sinckler was knocked out (above) by friendly fire.

Not only did England lose a pillar of their scrum, they lost a ball carrier and a passer.

With him went that extra ability to get the ball away from a dominant South African tackle.

After such a dreadful start the pressure of the occasion consumed a young England team which had not been in such a place before.

The three things to look at in review are what options did they take, how well did they execute those options and what was the outcome?

In their own 22 in that crucial, tone-setting opening period I did not have a problem with their options.

But the execution was terrible and that meant the outcome was painful.

England repeatedly gave South Africa the opportunity to dominate, piling pressure on themselves – and inviting the Boks to absolutely unload a game plan which was to marmalise the opposition up front then keep them squeezed deep in their own half. The Boks were awesome. Physically they overwhelmed England but they brought a rugby intellect as well.

Technically fantastic, they found soft spots in England’s set-piece. And England couldn’t cope because their own execution was poor.

They needed their kicking game to be on point. They needed to get out of their own territory and not invite the Springboks to impose that physicality. They could not do it.

Eventually you reach a point where you are chasing a game and when that happened South Africa had the quality of finisher to pick them apart. The tries by the two wingers were works of art. But look, there’s absolutely no embarrassment at getting beaten in the final by a team at a physical and emotional peak.

Maybe we were seduced by the way this young England group just moved on from their sensational semifinal win over New Zealand. The fact they just shook hands and walked off. We were naive perhaps to look at that, project it forward a week and just think, ‘These guys have got this’. We all live and learn.

And that’s the point. England have a squad of players who now understand what it takes if you want the ultimate prize. They have been shown there is a place teams can go on a given day.

I’m really excited to see these boys move forward.

They must not wear the scars from this final for too long.

It’s one game, a game that South Africa won rather than that they lost. It happens in sport. They need to understand that.

As horrible as the disappointment is, it is invaluable experience.

This group is young enough to come again so, after congratulating them on what they achieved here, my message to them is this: Store up four years of ambition and a little bit of hurt and go win the thing in 2023.