Jamie George admitted his side had failed to take a golden opportunity to beat the All Blacks but insisted they would learn from their last-gasp loss at Twickenham.
England’s frustrated captain and head coach Steve Borthwick also backed a downcast George Ford to recover from his painful kicking misses and believe England will bounce back stronger against Australia next week.
“We were in a position to win the game, and whenever you put yourselves in position to win and don’t come away with it you are disappointed,” said George, suggesting Ford should not be blamed for the outcome after failing to land a late penalty and an even later drop goal. “He hasn’t missed many in his career, so we certainly can’t blame him for that.
“We actually did what we had spoken about. We had spoken about being in that exact position, we walked through being in that exact position and we felt like we were in control of it. We kept attacking them and unfortunately George missed the kick. If it goes slightly more left, we are talking about a very different result.”
Borthwick also stressed the thin margins between success and failure after England’s third successive narrow late loss to the same opponents. “When you are in a position when you are winning by the margin we were at that time, there is clearly an opportunity to win the game. We gave them a window to get back and they did it.
“They had 10 players from the World Cup final and had more caps in their 15 than we had in our 23. We didn’t get the win we wanted but everyone can see this team is developing into a very strong team. New Zealand are a quality side and since we last played together they have had seven Test matches and been together three months.
“There are a lot of experienced players on the pitch and they knew what we were trying to do. The team in those drop goal situations has been pretty successful. We weren’t today but depending on the width of a post, the result goes one way or the other. That is the nature of Test rugby.”
New Zealand were suitably relieved by the outcome with their head coach, Scott Robertson, quipping: “I don’t think George Ford has ever missed a drop kick in his life.”
His captain Scott Barrett, however, suggested the All Blacks deserved to sneak home because they had sought to attack more often than their opponents. “They are a dangerous team but we potentially played a bit more rugby than them. I was pleased with our endeavour. They had every opportunity to win it. Going back to the last series, there have been three tight encounters and they had the opportunities to get their nose in front.”
The All Black No 8 Ardie Savea also said he had expected Ford to slot the penalty.“I didn’t think we had that in the end. We got lucky with the penalty kick, but rugby is a game of fine margins and we will take it. That game could’ve gone either way but I’m very proud of the boys for staying in it and defending the goal-line like that.”
