Stuart Lancaster will announce his World Cup squad later rather than sooner after admitting that the contributions made by England’s replacements against France in Paris, where a 19-point deficit was nearly wiped out in the final 10 minutes, had given him something to think about.
Danny Cipriani scored England’s first try and made a difference to their back play, while Danny Care provided a spark at scrum-half and the five forwards all made an impact after an hour of rugby that ranked among the most disjointed England have produced under Lancaster.
“The bench made a huge difference and increased the energy,” said the head coach. “It made the last 20 minutes positive for us, although it did not gloss over the rest of the game. Dave Attwood, Nick Easter and Danny Cipriani made a difference when they came on, the two props [Mako Vunipola and David Wilson] did well, Jamie George was excellent and so was Danny Care.”
Asked if he knew his 31 for the World Cup or needed more time, he replied: “I do not know it. I will have to go away and think about it, watch the match again, have a chat with the coaches and make decisions towards the end of the week.” The deadline is a week on Monday, 31 August.
“We are two weeks away from playing Ireland and four from Fiji,” Lancaster said, referring to the final warm-up and the opening match of the tournament. “The boys are disappointed and I expect a reaction next time we play. Our performance in the first 60 minutes was not good enough at this level. Our decision-making at the breakdown was poor, so was our discipline and there were issues at the set pieces.
“We looked rusty, whereas the previous week against France we were cohesive and organised. It was completely different, which was disappointing given the players we had out there. We made a number of little errors and they all added up.”
Chris Robshaw believes that the way England finished the match showed the character of the World Cup hosts. The captain said: “We were poor in the first half but better after the break when we kept hold of the ball. You cannot give teams a head start at this level and we gave France too many easy points. I do not know what happened in the first half, whether it was down to rust or nerves, but it was not good enough.
“We have a lot to work on in the next few weeks ahead of the Ireland game. We are an analytical group individually and collectively and we know we let ourselves down in the first half. But there were a huge number of positives after and we showed we can take play through phases.”
The fly-half George Ford said an unlikely victory was on in the final five minutes with France hanging on grimly. “I thought we might snatch it at the end, but we had been too inaccurate before that and conceded too many penalties. It was the first match for a while for a lot of us but we were not good enough in the first half. We have to be better than that. We let them build a score and get their backs up. Cips made a great impact when he came on, bringing a spark we needed. We now have to make sure we turn up at Twickenham and beat Ireland.”
