Lancaster resists temptation to call in French legion for support

They were outsmarted as well as outmuscled in Saturday’s 
20-14 defeat at Twickenham, a game which had presumably offered the Red Rose’s best chance of taking a major scalp in the autumn internationals.

A more imposing South Africa side are up this weekend before the arrival of world champions New Zealand at headquarters on December 1 so pressure is already on Lancaster’s men, who missed the chance to climb back into the world’s top-four ranking.

There are plenty of qualified players operating in the French elite league, particularly Toulon open-side Steffon Armitage, whom many believe would augment this England side and eradicate some of their deficiencies.

But difficulties gaining access to those players across the Channel has generally seen Lancaster go without them and he said: “We could maybe pick someone (for South Africa) but the reality is he couldn’t play against New Zealand so what do we do then?

“From our point of view, the route is going into developing a squad. We’ve lost by quite a small margin against a side ranked two in the world just a week ago.

“We’ve gone very close to winning it and I think we should be confident about the decisions we’re making.”

Lancaster backed the decision-making of his players, too, after they turned down a raft of chances to kick penalties.

England had trailed 20-14 from the 54th minute but five times spurned the opportunity to go for goal, on four occasions going for touch and seeing their line-out repelled and also witnessing a tap-and-go which amounted to nothing.

There was too little composure in their execution as Australia continually absorbed everything and awaited mistakes but Lancaster refused to lament his squad’s positivity.

“I’m not going to stand here and criticise players’ decision-making in the context of the game immediately post-match,” he said.

“We’ll look at it afterwards but I don’t think that was the difference between us winning and losing.

“We thought they were the right calls but if we are going to back ourselves to go to the corner then we should take those opportunities. Ultimately, when we did get that momentum in the last 20 minutes it was one or two execution things – a little knock-on or penalty here – that meant we didn’t quite get across the line.”

Australia produced a magnificent response to their humbling 33-6 loss to France.

“They had a lot more energy in their performance than they did against France last week,” said Lancaster. “Against them, you saw lots of times where forwards were walking around but there was none of that today.

“You didn’t see any of them drop off in the first half like they did in Paris and I said at half-time that it was going to take to the 60th, 70th or 80th minute to win this one.

“But Australia played smart and put us under pressure.”

Manu Tuilagi’s try plus three penalties from Toby Flood saw England lead 14-11 at half-time before full-back Berrick Barnes kicked three second-half penalties to turn the game back in Australia’s favour and they then impressively held onto that lead to inflict Lancaster’s first defeat at Twickenham.

He concedes his side needed to understand the referee’s interpretation of the breakdown better after Australia open-side Michael Hooper dominated that aspect but saw positives especially with the impact of the replacements.

“We brought on Mako (Vunipola) and Joe Launchbury, who are both 21 years old, and that shows where we are and where we want to get to,” he said.

“We have to roll our sleeves up, learn our lessons and get stuck into South Africa because it’s a big challenge coming around now.”

Yorkshireman Danny Care, the Harlequins scrum-half whose quick-tap created Tuilagi’s try, admits there is work to be done.

However, after forcing a draw in South Africa earlier this summer, they are confident of being able to go one better on Saturday. “We’re not going to be world-beaters tomorrow but, hopefully, in three years we will be and that’s what we’re aiming for,” he said.

“It’s a massive game next week now. We know what’s coming with South Africa. They are very physical and we played against them three times in the summer and nearly got a win. We should have got a victory in that last Test which gives us confidence.

“We’ve got to go out there and perform now – we can’t keep losing at home against the big teams.

“We have got to match up with South Africa physically. They’ve got some massive forwards and some big backs.

“Watching Australia’s clips, you couldn’t pick out how they were going to play, though we knew they’d throw it around, changing direction after first phase and second phase, with little chips over from Curtley Beale, who showed his world class today.

“But with South Africa we know a little bit more about what they are going to do. They kick and chase very effectively and we have to front up to that.”