England sceptics circling wagons
Lancaster feels heat
STUART Lancaster will l ead a brutal postmortem t hi s morning into England’s latest Test defeat, in the knowledge that with the World Cup approaching the heat is increasingly on him and his misfiring side.
Having been beaten by South Africa in Saturday’s QBE Test at Twickenham, to extend their losing run to five games, the national team are under fire and circling the wagons.
Lancaster and his assistants are poised to make sweeping changes ahead of the clash with Samoa in five days’ time, against a backdrop of increasing criticism and concerns about the form of fly-half Owen Farrell in particular.
There will be a potentially ‘ nasty’ review at England’s hotel in Surrey today before urgent steps are taken to rectify the various glaring deficiencies which are undermining their build-up to next year’s showpiece tournament. Lancaster maintains that development progress is being made but he has conceded that results are now of paramount importance to support these upbeat claims. ‘I don’t think any team stops developing or learning but the clock ultimately stops at the World Cup,’ he said.
‘You also know that if you don’t win in the short term, whilst also trying to develop the side in the long term, then ultimately pressure can be caused by not winning consistently. ‘We’ve had five games against the top two sides in the world and we’ve not been smashed in any of them. ‘In a lot of ways we’ve been reasonably dominant against them. Clearly the pressure i s on because we’ve not achieved our objectives, but internally there’s a very strong group working hard together and there’s no sense of the pressure affecting people.’
Lancaster’s sense of growing unrest about England’s stuttering build-up to the World Cup was echoed by his players.
Flanker Tom Wood said: ‘ We understand we will come under a lot of pressure now. The heat is going to come on from the rugby media and public.
‘Everyone relates everything to the World Cup and puts it in that context now and for us we just have to stay tight as a group, keep plugging on and make sure we keep doing the basics well and preparing as well as we can.’
Bath fly-half George Ford was preparing for a harsh inquest today, adding: ‘I don’t think it’s going to be comfortable! There will be another tough meeting on Monday morning, going through things we could have done better.
‘It will be constructive. There are things that happened today that probably happened last week a little bit, so I suppose for it to happen two weeks on the bounce, it (review meeting) could get a little bit nasty.
‘But we’re an honest team, which sticks our hands up and says: “We’re going to get better”.’
Lancaster was forced to address widespread calls for Farrell to be dropped from the No 10 shirt in light of poor form and the fact that he appeared to be in considerable discomfort on Saturday.
The head coach insisted his playmaker is fully fit and offered his support, saying: ‘Owen will be frustrated at one or two things. The ball out on the full from kick- off, things like that, things that can come back and haunt you. Obviously in a key position as a 10, it is important.
‘But he has been outstanding for
“We will come under a lot of pressure now”
England in the past. He certainly wasn’t at fault for us losing. You lose because of the collective. It is not because of one person.
‘We have a lot of faith in Owen as a player and as a person. We’ll be sticking by him really in terms of his development within the squad, without a doubt.’
However, Ford is destined to start against Samoa as one of a number of changes, with Wasps captain James Haskell and Ben Morgan other likely additions to the starting XV. England fear that the Pacific island side will come to Twickenham believing they can produce a shock.
‘They’ll come here knowing they have a sniff of winning the game,’ said No 8 Billy Vunipola. ‘I think they are going to smell blood. They will definitely be licking their lips. We definitely have to prepare well and not underestimate them.’
There was certainly not a sniff of England winning against the Springboks on Saturday, despite them drawing level at 20-20 early in the second half.
With South African lock Victor Matfield in the sin-bin and the visitors down to 14 men, Davey Morgan and replacement Ben Morgan crossed the whitewash to raise home hopes.
But that was almost immediately snuffed out when Schalk Burger bulldozed his way over in the righthand corner to re- establish the Springboks’ superiority and they never looked like relinquishing their lead.
England huffed and puffed and there were only three points between the sides afer Brad Barritt scored a try in the dying seconds.
But Lancaster knows his side were well beaten again and there will be some serious thinking going on to try and stop the rot that has afflicted the English camp.