Lancaster Coy About Keeping England Job

World Cup hosts England face Uruguay in Manchester on Saturday in their final Pool A fixture, but are already condemned to an early exit.

England coach Stuart Lancaster apologised and admitted his future is uncertain after Australia inflicted his side’s second devastating World Cup defeat in a week.

But chief executive Ian Ritchie said on englandrugby.com: “I would like to stress there will be no hasty reaction to England’s performance in this World Cup“.

“But we’ve also been well beaten and knocked out of the World Cup in the pool stage”.

The Independent on Sunday’s front page had a photo of Robshaw striding off the pitch hands on hips, with his shattered troops spread around the field, and the headline “England Regrets”.

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

“For me it was about winning the game and the courage we displayed was the most important thing”.

Lancaster became coach after England went out of the 2011 World Cup in the quarter finals.

Adam Ashley-Cooper has responded to Danny Cipriani’s claim that not a single Australian would be good enough for England’s team by mocking the fly-half’s vanity.

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

Wales and Australia will now do battle for the top of Pool A – dubbed the group of death because it included three of the top-ranked sides in he world.

“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”. But England would be in pole position given their match-up against whipping-boys Uruguay, in which they would back themselves to get an attacking bonus point.

It was Australia’s highest score and biggest margin of victory over England at Twickenham, where they won the first of their two World Cups by beating the English in the 1991 final. “It’s unbelievably hard that it’s come to this – we have left no stone unturned in terms of mental preparation and physical prep. It’s just not happened”, he said.

Gatland acknowledged that Australia had done Wales “a massive favour” against England.

Reflecting on the defeats against their Pool A rivals, Lancaster said: “Looking back, I think the Wales game – being 22-12 up 60 minutes, 50-odd minutes in and then not to come away with a win – really put us under pressure in this particular game”.

Vunipola made the remarks at a London charity dinner hosted by former England scrum-half Kyran Bracken on Thursday night when he also appeared to question the influence backs’ coach Andy Farrell had on Stuart Lancaster’s set-up.

His team have looked frightened in all three matches.

“That went well for us tonight but we’ve got to be consistent with it again next week and again and again”. Lancaster highlighted the potential of Maro Itoje and Jack Clifford and said he hopes the nation will get behind the young players as he feels everything is in place for continued success over the coming years.