Rugby World Cup 2015: England chief Ian Ritchie rules out “knee-jerk” sacking

England were drawn alongside Australia, Wales and Fiji – all ranked in the top nine in the world – plus Uruguay, in Pool A.

“Whatever the reasons, very sorry that the England player’s dreams are over,” tweeted Carling, tellingly not including the coaching staff in his message.

Is this really less than a month since England paraded on stage with Take That at a gala send-off and Lancaster expressed his belief that England would win the cup?

If they do manage to topple Wales it would leave Australia as the only unbeaten team in Pool A, but with their two toughest opponents England and Wales ahead of them.

After overseeing England’s worst-ever Rugby World Cup campaign, Stuart Lancaster said Sunday there will be a discussion about his future as coach – but not right now. “There is a huge amount at stake, with families and livelihoods, so I am just trying to keep things in perspective”.

“It’s stating the obvious but it’s going to sit with us all forever, players, coaches and management”.

Coach Stuart Lancaster’s side did reduce the deficit when Anthony Watson bulldozed over the line with 25 minutes to play and a penalty from Owen Farrell had the crowd on their feet, but Australia ultimately proved too canny.

For his part Woodward was in restrained form compared to his braggadaccio act during the lead-up to the match where he had taunted the Aussies by declaring as a team “they are not the brightest” and could “disintegrate” if England kept hold of the ball.

Victorious head coach Michael Cheika must now prepare his side to face Wales here next Saturday.

“You have to be consistent and yeah it went well tonight, but we have to do that again next week and again after that. We have a few very talented players and, in order to move forward, we need to change the coaching set-up”.

“I know it’s tough but our intent is certainly not to do that, it was purely to get four points to try to get through the pool”.

“That’s the first I’ve heard on that”, said Grey at the Wallabies morning press conference when asked about whether he had seen anything or heard mention of it.

“It’s been the group of hell, not just the group of death”.

Australian Eddie Jones, whose Japan team have beaten South Africa and Samoa at this World Cup, reveals that he would be open to an enquiry from the RFU. You’ve got to feel for other teams involved.

“We don’t have the burden of needing to win the game to qualify”, said Gatland.

Another former World Cup-winning coach, New Zealand’s Graham Henry, believes something of an identity crisis contributed to England’s failure.

Wales captain Sam Warburton tells Scrum V he was impressed with Australia in their win over England at Twickenham. We had a short turnaround, I thought we played pretty well and dominated in the first half.

Sir Clive Woodwood, who masterminded the 2003 triumph in Australia, felt England “simply haven’t been good enough”.