Rugby World Cup: England sleepwalk into last eight with Samoa escape
BBC Sport says Owen Farrell leads the on-pitch debrief after England’s one-point win over Samoa.
“That’s not good enough.”
Owen Farrell’s verdict was emphatic.
In public at least though, it was aimed at himself, rather than England as a whole.
The captain had been asked about the moment deep in the second half, with his team 17-11 adrift, when he had lined up a straightforward penalty.
With the shot clock ticking down on the big screen, Bernard Foley’s costly dawdling against the All Blacks knocking around somewhere in his memory, and the impetus entirely on England to get on with play, inexplicably Farrell was timed out.
“I was unaware of the clock. I obviously got lost a little,” he said.
It summed up an England performance that threatened to be a sleepwalk into a nightmare.
The afternoon had begun brightly.
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