England and Wasps star sees tough week ahead

The tournament hosts can not reach the last eight from Pool A after Australia applied the killer blow with Saturday’s 33-13 win at Twickenham, a week after Wales had drawn first blood with their momentous victory over England.

“That’s not my decision”, he said of the thorny question now dividing English rugby.

“From my point of view, my priority is to get the team ready for (the last Pool A game against) Uruguay“. We all get the significance of the defeat (to Australia). “The responsibility and accountability lies with me”.

All that remains for England is to contest a dead rubber against Uruguay, amid what appears sure to be a flat atmosphere at the Etihad Stadium next weekend.

Warren Gatland spoke of his relief that Wales made it out of the “group of hell” and is now targeting top spot in Pool A.

“They’re trying to emulate the way the All Blacks play and I don’t think they’ve got the skill level to do that because they simply don’t come from that sort of environment”.

Jones, who coached Australia to the 2003 World Cup final and was an advisor to South Africa when they won the tournament in 2007, said it had been an error to dump flyhalf George Ford for Owen Farrell for the second match against Wales.

Lancaster admitted he would consider his future, but the ultimate decision would lay elsewhere once the dust had settled on a disappointing campaign.

“England had patches when they didn’t play too badly in the game, but [David] Pocock and [Michael] Hooper just cleaned up”.

That led to a stinging rebuke from Ritchie, who said earlier this year: “I don’t think that is acceptable at all”.

“The score never reflected that”.

“The first half we went in 17-3 behind and I felt that was a tough scoreline”. “It wasn’t flawless and it’s just another step along the way but the commitment was very good and we’ll be looking for more of that going forward”.

“We gave Australia an easy line-out and the sin-binning resulted from that”.

“And we scored four tries against Fiji, 22-12 up against Wales and couldn’t finish the job – so it’s a fair point”. I can’t explain how much it hurts.

The 30-year-old Harlequins full-back said on Twitter: “I’m absolutely gutted for what’s happened”.

“Messages, words in person, on social media and cheering for us at all the games, you’ve been awesome!”

“We’ve got fantastic supporters and we feel we have let them down”.

If they had followed the football model, then we wouldn’t be in this position.

Michael Cheika has gone big on the traditional coaching mantra of “taking one match at a time” at this tournament and reduced it to a minute-by-minute concern but he will be well aware of the potential implications of defeat at Twickenham.

I need a few time, obviously Ian needs a few time and the RFU does as well.

“He’s the proudest and hardest-working Englishman I’ve ever known and it’s a privilege to have worked with the guy”.