England manager Martin Johnson bemoaned his team’s lack of composure for the third week running after they suffered a record 32-6 home mauling by New Zealand on Saturday.
Coming on the back of last week’s 42-6 pounding by South Africa and a 28-14 defeat by Australia, Saturday’s loss completed a tough month for the manager, who kicked off his reign with a comfortable win over the Pacific Islanders.
”Three weeks on the trot we were in the game at halftime and at the risk of saying the same thing we didn’t take our chances,” Johnson told a news conference.
”There were lots of good things again. In the first half both defences were pretty much on top, we made a very good attacking team look average.
”But as a team we need to improve our second half performance. They guys are getting used to the physical intensity of Test rugby.”
England trailed 12-3 at halftime and were desperately close to cutting the deficit to two at the start of the second half when Nick Easter looked certain to score before being ankle-tapped by Mils Muliaina.
New Zealand weathered the subsequent pressure and, as Toby Flood became the third of four England players to be sin-binned, turned the match by scoring the first of three second-half tries after shoving England off their own scrum.
”It was a turning point,” Johnson said. ”We’ve gone from a chance of a try to having 14 men again and then conceding the first try.
”At this level when you make mistakes you get killed. It’s getting a bit old to say it’s tight margins. We made it too easy for them to score and you can’t do that at this level.
”That scrum was a key moment. To turn the ball over and score a try, that kills you.
”We have got to get better at concentrating. In Tests there are crucial moments and they have to recognise them without the captain saying it.
”You can’t let your concentration go for a minute. You can in the Premiership and get away with it but not against these guys. We lost composure at times.”
Johnson said that he had not yet had a chance to analyse the four yellow cards that hit his team so hard.
”Some of the guys were surprised at their yellows,” he said. ”I’ve not seen each one but to get four is pretty unusual.”
Despite the third successive hefty defeat, Johnson said he was proud of the effort of his players and the contribution of his coaching team after a difficult week.
”I never doubted we would front-up today,” he said. ”And some people will say ‘at least you turned up and played’ but that’s the absolute minimum for us.
”We have to learn our lessons quickly going into the Six Nations.”
England’s defeat leaves them outside the top four in the IRB rankings which means they will be among the second seeds for Monday’s draw for the 2011 World Cup. – Reuters