Johnson bemoans England indiscipline
Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:40
England manager Martin Johnson admitted that poor discipline had cost his side a shot at the Six Nations title after a 15-15 stalemate with Scotland on Saturday.
"It's a weird one, the guys are disappointed," Johnson said after a result which means England will not be able to win the championship if France beat Italy on Sunday.
"We had chances to win the game and we didn't need to give away silly penalties in the second half when they didn't look like scoring," Johnson added.
"I said to the guys at half-time, just back ourselves to retain ball and win the game."
Johnson felt the scrappy pattern of the match had not helped his side.
"It was taking two minutes to reset scrums at times and it is not great for anyone," he said.
"It makes the game very fractured. We had enough pressure to put them away but we didn't and the end result is no-one is really happy. They will probably think the same."
Johnson added: "I thought the effort was good, we just need to be that bit slicker. We had more pressure at the end of the game than they did. They did have a big chance when the ball hit the post but I felt we should have put the game away."
England captain Steve Borthwick echoed Johnson's comments.
"It's frustrating for both sides and a kind of empty result," he said. "I'm very proud of the effort of the guys and we had chances to win but didn't take them.
"Scotland are a very good side, results haven't gone for them but we knew coming up here was a big ask against a quality group of players."
Andy Robinson, the Scotland coach who was in charge of Johnson and England's other forwards when they won the 2003 World Cup, said he was pleased with his side's improvement following a defeat by Italy two weeks ago.
"The thing for us, and what I said to the team, is that we can stand toe-to-toe with anybody and play against anybody," Robinson said.
"I thought the set-piece work went well today, I thought some of the invention and things we tried to do were good.
"Nobody said it was going to be easy, we've got to keep working hard," he said. "We have been working hard and I'm really pleased with the attitude."
AFP
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