It was time for a couple of home truths from England this weekend after another below-par performance against Wales in a desperately tight quarterfinal.
Coach Clive Woodward snapped at a couple of French journalists and tried to dodge the bullets, but finally admitted: ”I’ve got to be brutally honest. We’re winning these games through sheer bloody-mindedness.
”If we play like we did tonight, we’ll have no chance against France next Sunday.”
Assistant coach Phil Larder said: ”The boys were very despondent in our dressing room. We haven’t conceded three tries for a long time.”
Later Woodward, with a touch of irony, said: ”I’m sure we’ll get some positive feed back from you boys.
”France are the stand-out team. They must be red-hot favourites to win it. But they haven’t played England yet!”
But the most surprising statement came from Mike Catt, the man who came on at half-time and steadied a seriously listing ship.
Catt, drafted in to the squad as a last resort when Alex King suffered a late knee injury, said: ”There were no instructions at all. I just went on and played the way I did.”
Yup, the key to England’s recovery from a 10-3 half-time deficit entered the fray with no instructions.
Woodward, on hearing this, appeared to grimace. It may have been wind.
Catt added: ”I’m capable of playing eighty minutes, there’s no pressure on me at the moment.
”It was great to get the run out that I need. It’s good fun at the moment and we’re winning.
”We’re through to the semis and that’s important on its own.
”The advantage was being able to watch those first 40 minutes. I could see that we were playing too much in our own half. We had to push them back and make them make mistakes.”
Woodward’s early comments in last night’s press conference (which failed to mention Jason Robinson’s match-turning break for England’s only try) verged on the paranoid. He told us absent captain Martin Johnson didn’t like press conferences, refused to explain his tactics to one Frenchman and told another to stop nodding!
Amid this pantomime he said: ”I think we made the right call bringing Mike Catt on. He did very well.
”We’re in the semifinal of the World Cup. I don’t care if France are the favourites or not.
”I’m not sure shocked is the right word for the first half. I’m confidence we can sit down, have a clear the air meeting next week and beat France.
”If you want to bet against England in the semifinal go ahead.
”It’s far nicer to be flying to Sydney than flying home like we did last time in the quarters.
”We hold our hands up, it wasn’t our best game.
”I wouldn’t have made the decision to cross kick, Ben Cohen to Neil Back. We weren’t thinking too cleverly.
”That’s all I need to say. I believe we’ll beat France.
”I never fear we’re going to lose. But clearly France are now the red-hot favourites to win the next game. We’re looking forward to it. France know us, we know them.
”We’ve just got to hope the injuries clear up. We’ve won every game without playing anywhere near our best.
”Wales were outstanding, you’ve got to take that in to account. That was as good as I’ve seen and that includes Wembley in 1999.
”They did themselves proud, but they lost. We believe Iain Balshaw or Josh Lewsey will be okay for next week.”
Wilkinson: ”You have to play these games minute by minute. We had to do a lot of defending. Wales did very well.
”It was a slightly better performance in the second half. We’ve not played well, but we’ve believed in ourselves.”
One last surprise: Woodward denied Austin Healey had been approached to fly out as a replacement, saying: ”That’s just Austin’s publicity machine. I saw the quote from him saying he’d been asked by all kinds of media people but the truth is I have’t phoned anybody.”