Finishing frustrates Lancaster

Editor

England head coach Stuart Lancaster was left regretting the chances that his side missed in Saturday's one-point loss to New Zealand.

England head coach Stuart Lancaster was left regretting the chances that his side missed in the one-point loss to New Zealand.

The visitors scored three tries through Marland Yarde, Mike Brown and Chris Ashton, but were unable to cope with New Zealand upping the pace in the second half.

Manu Tuilagi was denied a possible try thanks to a Ben Smith tackle and England had other chances, with Lancaster left to ponder those missed opportunities afterwards.

“We're disappointed to have come away with nothing having worked so hard. We put ourselves in a position to win after the first half,” said Lancaster.

“We have high expectations on this tour and having lost the first game so narrowly we wanted to level the series and take it to a decider in Hamilton.

“But they are high-quality opposition and after another week together you could see the improved cohesion in their performance.

“There were one or two errors in our game which presented them with opportunities, but overall the positives far outweigh the negatives.

“Overall I felt the backline created a lot of opportunities as a group. The frustration for us is not finishing the opportunities.

“Scoring three tries in Dunedin is not a bad return so we are moving in the right direction but still, we didn't quite finish the deal.

“It's decision-making at the highest level that we need to look at and that's probably the next step we need to take with the team.”