England’s players are kicking themselves for allowing New Zealand to launch the second-half fightback that sealed a thrilling 28-27 victory in Dunedin and an unassailable 2-0 lead in the best-of-three series. The visitors led at half-time only for the All Blacks to respond with three second-half tries.
Tom Wood, the England flanker, revealed that he and his team-mates felt victory was well within their grasp when they walked in 10-6 ahead at the interval. “It was there for us,” he said. “At half-time it felt like we had them. Unfortunately, just after half-time we gave them too much. We left the door ajar for them and they kicked it open.”
Players and management are also agreed that England need to display more composure under pressure if they are to win tight games against top-quality opposition. “I’m getting fed up of having to explain it away. Frankly, it just wasn’t good enough,” said Wood.
“A lot of the credit goes to them for being so dynamic but a lot of the blame lies with us. When you haven’t had the ball for 10 to 15 minutes and then you force passes, it’s criminal. You just need to get your hands on it, build some pressure and make them defend for a while, which we didn’t manage to do.
“To some extent it felt like we were doing the right things, but maybe we need to be more pragmatic, put the ball in behind them and go back to our driving game and set-piece game that had worked so well for us.”
Stuart Lancaster was equally frustrated that England, beaten 20-15 in last week’s first Test, had again fallen just short. “It’s the decision-making at the highest level we need to look at, not least when to hold on to the ball and create the next phase,” the coach said. “I thought we deserved a half-time lead, but in the third quarter New Zealand played some exceptional rugby. We’re disappointed we came away with nothing after so much hard work. We have set ourselves high expectations on this tour and we wanted to be 1-1 and going to Hamilton for a decider.”
The New Zealand coach, Steve Hansen, singled out Ben Smith’s fine cover tackle on Manu Tuilagi as the key moment of the match. “We went from there down the field, scored a penalty and won by a point.”
He also suggested the tight series was helping the development of his team. “England have always been someone we’ve enjoyed playing and particularly of late. When you have a true contest between anyone it’s enjoyable. It’s an opportunity to test yourself, that’s why they’re called Test matches. We’ve got a lot of respect for them.”
The England captain, Chris Robshaw, insists they will now aim to finish their season with a flourish in the final Test. “We still want to win a game down here and we all believe that is very much attainable. We made a couple of individual errors which played into their hands. They took their chances. I don’t think there’s any sort of secret recipe.”
