How England squandered a golden opportunity... again

For England, it has become a familiar feeling. For the third time this year, Steve Borthwick’s side let a game slip from their grasp, squandering a golden opportunity to secure a rare win over the All Blacks as George Ford missed twice with his boot in the final minutes.

- HARRY LATHAM-COYLE

After Mark Tele’a’s brilliant finish and Damian McKenzie’s superb touchline conversion nudged New Zealand ahead, Ford was handed a first chance to snatch victory from the tee as Anton Lienert-Brown was penalised for a high tackle.

When his penalty clanged back off the upright, that appeared to be that. Yet a Patrick Tuipulotu knock-on in contact gave England one last opportunity. It set up just about the perfect scenario from which to launch a match-winning play: a midfield scrum about 10 metres from the opposition line.

So what went wrong in the passage leading up to Ford’s miss? Here, The Independent analyses England’s errors in those final moments.

1. The scrum

A worrying trend in England’s recent final-quarter collapses has been their failure to sustain a scrum effort across 80 minutes. It was apparent in their semi-final defeat to South Africa at last year’s World Cup, and their problems have not been solved since, even with varying personnel against an array of opposition.

The starting pack had fronted up well to a strong All Blacks scrummaging unit, with Ellis Genge and Will Stuart performing strongly at prop. But after the pair were replaced by rookie Fin Baxter and veteran Dan Cole, England began to creak, conceding a couple of penalties at the set piece. Mention must be given here to New Zealand’s replacements Pasilio Tosi and the outstanding Tuipulotu, who combined to add plenty of mass (260kg) and menace.