Marcus Smith bemoans ‘small moments’ in England’s defeat to All Blacks
England fly-half Marcus Smith takes on the All Blacks defence at Eden Park.
England fly-half Marcus Smith believes they missed another golden opportunity to get the better of the All Blacks as they suffered a 24-17 loss at Eden Park on Saturday.
After falling short in a narrow 16-15 defeat in the first encounter of the two-Test series in Dunedin last week, England delivered another fine performance in Auckland as they were competitive for long periods.
Steve Borthwick’s troops held a 17-13 lead heading into the game’s final quarter but the introduction of the All Blacks‘ replacements – with Beauden Barrett leading the way – helped them to extend their unbeaten run at Eden Park to 49 Tests.
Fine margins between the sides
And Smith, who converted tries from Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and Tommy Freeman while also slotting a penalty, feels that there were fine margins between the two sides.
“For me it was just the small moments. Eden Park is a historic place and we had the belief we could do something special,” he told Sky Sports.
“It was probably the small moments – a touch at the breakdown, a few wrong decisions on the edges from myself – that turned the tie in the All Blacks’ favour.
“When they’re ahead, they’re obviously a very successful team and it’s hard to wrestle momentum back. Tough one to take.
“We’re building to something and the belief we have is growing. On another day we get the result here, or the result last week.
“Fair play to New Zealand, they’re a tough team to beat. We’ll give them a good go in the autumn.”
All Blacks keep Eden Park fortress intact with another dramatic victory over excellent England
Despite holding the upper hand in the territorial and possession stakes in the third quarter, England could not increase their lead and the All Blacks took control of proceedings in the game’s final quarter.
There were key moments for the Red Rose with George Martin conceding a needless free-kick at a line-out and a fumble from Jamie George when they were in a good attacking position and both those incidents took place close to New Zealand’s try-line.
“It’s tough. We’ve shown some improvement in the way we’re playing the game but this wasn’t good enough at the end of the day,” said second-row Maro Itoje.
“In the second-half we were not as accurate as we wanted to be. We gave away a few too many penalties and we gave them easy points and easy territory. When you’re playing against a good team you can’t really do that.
“We gave them backfield opportunities to run it back to them and Beauden Barrett and the rest of them are good players. We live and we learn. We’re only going to get better for these experiences.”
All Blacks made to work hard
Meanwhile, All Blacks skipper Scott Barrett admitted that his team had to dig deep in both encounters.
“I’m hugely proud of the boys to hold on and win the arm wrestle and finish off a good performance,” Barrett said.
“Test matches certainly test your character and we had to dig deep there right until the last minute. Well done to England, they’ve had two strong Test matches against us.”
