Lawes, Itoje outline where it agonisingly went wrong for England

Neither Courtney Lawes nor Maro Itoje were shy in Saturday night’s post-game mixed zone when it came to identifying what they felt was the reason for England not dethroning South Africa, the Rugby World Cup title holders.

The 2019 champions chased down a 15-6 deficit in the final minutes to clinch a 15-16 comeback win and book their place in next Saturday’s final against the All Blacks.

Both Lawes and Itoje were standout England performers, rising to the occasion and getting their team to within a whisker of reaching a decider no one gave them a chance of making before the tournament started.

England v South Africa

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England v South Africa

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England led 12-6 at the interval, but Lawes said: “We gave away too many penalties in the second half. Fine margins, it is one of those things. We gave it everything we had and we can be quite proud of that.”

According to Itoje, the half-time message was: “Just to execute the game plan, to try to raise the intensity. We knew it was going to go up, so it was about executing our game plan and being disciplined.

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“There were things we could have been more alive to,” he added, reflecting on the decisive concession of 10 late points. “They scored from that lineout move, we should have been more alive to that, and a couple of penalties up the field where we should have been a bit sharper.

“But they are a good team. Every team you play against is going to have a moment. We are just gutted… The whole plan was to put them under pressure. We accomplished that in the first half, we wanted to challenge them and we did that. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.”

Back to Lawes. “Their set-piece came through in the end, that is something they can very much rely on. Their bench definitely brought an impact onto the pitch. we knew that could be the case and we unfortunately didn’t deal with it well enough.

“It’s disappointing because we should have won it. We were the better team on the day but congrats to them. They found a way to win and that is what you have to do sometimes.”

Itoje added: “Very sad. A lot of effort, a lot of passion, a lot of time and dedication has gone into this World Cup from our side, but I’m proud of the effort, how hard we fought out there. We were a couple of minutes away from executing the game plan pretty well. It was sad but we have to dust ourselves off and move on.”

The 22-year-old George Martin packed down for just his fourth Test start. Lawes was impressed by how the rookie played.

“I just spoke to him and said I’m very much looking forward to watching his career. Incredible game, it just shows his maturity as a player. He’s 22, the same age as me when I had my first World Cup. He is going to be here for a long time.”

England, though, aren’t yet finished at France 2023 as they have next Friday’s bronze medal match versus Argentina to contest.

Lawes insisted his team will get back up for that game against a team they beat 27-10 in Marseille at the start of the tournament last month.

“I don’t think it will be too difficult (to pick the boys up). It’s really important for us to finish on a high. Obviously, we don’t know the team yet but a lot of boys that are on this tour won’t represent their country again, so it’s very important we finish where we started.”