CHOKED UP
England ........................... 15 New Zealand ................... 16 by Alex Spink
EDDIE JONES told of his devastation after Lady Luck shunned his England rugby heroes.
A week after escaping to victory on the back of a controversial call in their favour against South Africa, their good fortune ran out against the champions of the world.
“Some times the game loves you and some times it doesn’t,” cursed Jones after Sam Underhill’s late try was chalked off for a marginal offside.
“It loved us last week, it didn’t love us so much this week. We’re devastated but we take the good with the bad. We’ll get some love from the game further down the track, don’t worry.”
The contrast in emotion among a sell-out 82,149 Twickenham crowd could not have been greater from last week. Against the Springboks an explosion of joy greeted the referee’s decision to allow Owen Farrell’s patently ‘no-arms’ hit rather than give the Boks a deserved shot at glory.
This time there was a chorus of boos as South African TMO Marius Jonker ruled Courtney Lawes had strayed offside as he charged down the kick which led to Underhill’s score.
“There was no doubt he was offside,” scoffed All Blacks boss Steve Hansen. “He was just about in the halfback’s back pocket.
“What was going through my mind was, ‘Will they be brave enough to make the decision?’ And they were, which was good.”
The decision was cruel on Underhill, superb throughout an epic contest, who turned world player of the year Beauden Barrett inside out with a feint and step on his way to the line.
He would have been able to dine out on that for ever more. Instead he and his team will rue what might have been.
England, 14-point no-hopers in the eyes of the bookies, had stunned the All Blacks by racing into a 15-0 lead. Chris Ashton, chomping at the bit to make up for lost time on his first start for four years, opened the scoring after just 106 seconds.
Dylan Hartley doubled the lead near the half-hour mark, driven over by his pack and half the three-quarter line after Maro Itoje won clean lineout ball, followed by a Farrell drop goal.
But big decisions win matches and the All Blacks got theirs right on the stroke of half-time when captain Kieran Read bravely turned down a shot at goal for a scrum and was rewarded with a try through full-back Damian McKenzie.
Whereas England paid for taking captain Hartley off at half-time as their lineout fell apart under replacement Jamie George’s stewardship. And following Underhill’s unlucky break, they then failed to engineer a drop goal opportunity to win the match.
Jones refused to point the finger of blame and instead said: “We endorse every decision the players make.” But he will know that his team, heroic for so much of the contest, ultimately blew a golden chance to lay down a marker ahead of next year’s World Cup.
“Test match rugby is about those small opportunities,” sighed the Australian, painfully aware his side have blown leads of 12 points or more three times since June. “They took theirs, we didn’t take ours.
“It was a really good step forward because you benchmark yourself against New Zealand. They are the best in the world and we will get a lot of reward for the work we’ve done.
“They’ve been together three months. We have been together three weeks. They had 800 caps. We had 400 caps. But we have to work harder.
“We have got to fix things that didn’t work today and if we do that we are on the way to being the best in the world.”
Ashton could not hide his disappointment after his try-scoring return to England colours ended in heartbreak.
The Sale winger made a fool of New Zealand’s star wing Rieko Ioane as he notched his 20th Test try. He had dreamed of such a start but the finish was the stuff of nightmares.
“It’s real disappointment,” said Ashton. “We knew the game would have ups and downs. Unfortunately there were a couple of inches in it.
“It’s very hard for us to take. On another day we might have got that decision. Today it was not to be.
“It was a very special day. It is emotional as it has been quite a long journey to get back here.”