‘Now is not the time to be talking about things like that’

Steve Borthwick has steered clear of sharing his thoughts on the officiating of the scrum by referee Ben O’Keeffe in Saturday night’s Rugby World Cup semi-final.

South Africa’s winning kick came from a 78th-minute penalty by Handre Pollard following the awarding of a scrum penalty, one of a number of set-piece infringement decisions that went against the English in the latter stages of the tense contest in Paris.

Rather than being able to protect a 15-6 lead, England fell victim to a late 10-point surge that swept the Springboks to their one-point win and into next weekend’s final against New Zealand at Stade de France.

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“Around the scrum, I think the question was any issue. Now is not the time to be talking about things like that. Now is the time just to have the overall reflections,” he said.

The head coach also sidestepped a query about the disappointment that surely must have been felt by England’s props when the scrum was penalised. Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinckler were respective 53 and 56-minute replacements for front row starters, Joe Marler and Dan Cole.

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“We’re all disappointed. We came here to win a game to go to the World Cup final and we have fallen short. We all truly believed we could do it and we came very close to doing it.

“In adversity, in these tough times, there is usually a seed of something that will grow and be something brilliant in the future.

“Right now it’s too early for me to find that seed but we will make sure we find it, we will make sure we take some of what we went through, grab that and make sure it makes us stronger.”

Specifics were something that Borthwick simply didn’t want to embrace. “I’m not going to go into analysis of the game now. If you want to chat later in the week, I’ll give you a proper analysis,” he added, preferring instead to speak more generally about the 15-16 loss.

“The whole team performance was strong. We’re disappointed. We came with a plan to win the game but we fell a little bit short. Not far short but a little bit short. We’re desperately disappointed with it but the players should be incredibly proud of what they have done.

“In that 23 today, there were seven players 25 or under, the most of any semi-finalists. South Africa had one 25 or under, so there is a great blend within this squad and there will be lots of things we can take forward.

“We put ourselves in a position to win against the world champions and the current world No1. The players did very well but we are disappointed because we thought we were going to win.”

There was kudos for the Springboks. “They are the world champions, the current No1 for a reason. They have a lot of very good players and are very experienced. That’s a proper Test match, an intense encounter.

“We were playing against a coaching team who have been in place since the middle of 2018. They did an incredible achievement to win the 2019 World Cup and since then have had continuous development, bringing players through and the coaching team has been really, really consistent.

“For us, we have had four months as a coaching team with the players. I’ve asked the players to approach training and the game in a different way; for the players to be willing to change is all credit to them. This was another example of that.”