Johnson: Defeat was a lesson in rugby
Saturday, 22 Nov 2008 17:14
Martin Johnson rues missed opportunities after England lose 42-6
Martin Johnson rued missed opportunities after England were condemned to their worst-ever defeat at Twickenham.
A superb Ruan Pienaar performance and further tries from Danie Rossouw, Adrian Jacob, Jaque Fourie and Bryan Habana saw a ragged England defeated 42-6 in front of an unimpressed home crowd.
Taking responsibility for the defeat as the man in charge, the coach said a failure to take a series of chances had contributed to the crushing defeat.
"This week we actually created try-scoring opportunities and didn't take them.
"They gave us a lesson in some areas of the game, the main ones being scoring tries and turning pressure into points," he told a press conference following the game.
"To lose like that at home is a big disappointment. They're still our best players and we need to stand up and be counted against arguably the best team in the world in New Zealand next week."
He added: "There were gilt-edged chances -they defended well and stopped us at times, but we stopped ourselves."
"If you concede 20 points in the first half it's going to be very difficult to win but we had enough possession and territory to do that."
Though fly-half Danny Cipriani put in an under-par performance while defensive errors aided the South African tries, Johnson refuted suggestions that the players' heads had dropped in the second half.
"The players' efforts were never to be questioned. They are learning the brutal harsh lessons of the sport at this level."
"We're backing these guys. They're our players and they all did good things at times and they all made mistakes."
Captain Steve Borthwick commented: "The effort was there but the precision wasn't."
"We need to look at ourselves very closely and keep our heads held high until next week."
Phil Vickery, Nick Easter and Paul Sackey were the only survivors from England's World Cup final defeat in Paris 12 months ago, a game Johnson had labelled "irrelevant" for Saturday's proceedings.
But having lost their previous five meetings with South Africa - including a 36-0 humbling in the 2007 World Cup group stages - Johnson's men were subjected to a humiliating defeat at the home of English rugby.