Rugby Update: Johnson happy with England’s performance, but demands more.
Although England has performed marginally well in the recently ended autumn internationals but team manager, Martin Johnson still demands more from his team.
He was talking to the media yesterday and said he wants England’s team to be more adoptable, especially after the defeat against Springboks.
England’s team, who beat strong team Australia and Samoa in two consecutive matches early last month, failed to get their 3rd consecutive victory, when Springboks beat them with the score of 21-11 last Saturday.
Johnson said, no doubt England performed very well throughout the season, especially 2 victories against Australia in short span was really a good performance but still team has not been able to perform according to their potential.
"You beat Australia and everyone wants to call you the next great thing. But we have to understand how to play Test rugby in all its forms. It's not always going to be like the Australia game. It's doing the right thing every time and getting it right
every time -- you won't always get it but that's what we need to aim for."
Johnson admits that yes there were few mistakes from players, which were the big reason of England’s lost. He said, the basics of test match rugby are quite simple and you always need to keep your opponent under pressure. But if you made the mistakes that
England’s team made in the 2nd half and gave them a chance to put pressure back on England, then you can’t win the match and same went with England’s team.
"Do we have to go through that experience that to understand that? Maybe we do. We seemed to compound errors with errors. And if you do that at this level you'll give them shots and opportunities."
He said it was not a nice experience when England lost from Springboks but the team will learn with this lost that, what would be the result of giving any single opportunity to the opponent and England’s team will avoid this simple basic error of rugby in
the upcoming Six Nations and will look a different team.
Furthermore, he said although team lost again but he is really happy with the team’s performance and he especially praised the performance of youngsters, who are still new at international level but played very well and impressed Johnson.
He specially mentioned the names of Dan Cole, Ben Youngs, Chris Ashton and Courtney Lawes, who are still new in English side but performed very well. He said, after playing 6 test matches against world’s best teams, now they have started to understand, what
they need to have to perform at this level.
He said, by watching such marvellous performance from youngsters, he can say that England’s team will grow in future and will perform better.
Furthermore, he said that now his team’s eyes are on Six Nations tournament, which is starting from 4th of February next year, and all are looking positively towards it.
Johnson said, Although, competition will be tough in the Six Nations, as there will be some best teams from the world but he is sure that England will give a hard time to all teams and probably will come back with the cup, as England is a different team
after 5th of November, when they played against All Blacks.
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