Toby Flood embarrassed by England's failure to score a try

  • Published
Media caption,

Highlights - Wales 19-9 England

Fly-half Toby Flood believes it was "shameful" that England failed to score a try, for the first time in 14 Tests, during Saturday's 19-9 defeat by Wales.

"I don't want to use the word embarrassing - but it is a little bit," said the 26-year-old.

"It hurts, the fact we couldn't score a try. It is shameful."

Manager Martin Johnson's side will play one more warm-up match, against Ireland in Dublin on 27 August, before they head to New Zealand for the World Cup.

Flood added: "We can use harsh words because if you want to win a World Cup, tries are massive."

Meanwhile, Johnson was left fuming at England's inability to turn possession into points.

"It feels like we could still be playing now and we wouldn't be scoring a try," Johnson said.

"It was a very strange game. To let it slip like that was disappointing."

England forced Wales to make 100 tackles within the first 50 minutes of the game, and 134 in all, to England's 72, but could not unlock the hosts' defence.

The visitors scored all their nine points after re-starts, and failed to score from any of their visits to the Welsh 22.

"We had a stranglehold on the game and we let it slip away," Johnson said.

"Fundamentally, we got down their end a hell of a lot but didn't turn that into points. We had options to kick [for goal] and went for the try, fine, but we didn't get that either. Then we turned ball over too often.

Media caption,

Johnson frustrated by England errors

"We were so dominant but only level at 6-6 at half-time. But we said we had to keep the pressure on because we had taken a bit out of them I thought, doing what we had done. But again we just didn't hold onto the ball long enough. It was just error upon error upon error."

Twelve of the England starting side were playing their first match of the season, but Johnson refused to use rustiness as an excuse for his side's defeat.

"We got beaten and Wales deserved to win for the way they came back in the second half," he added. "We lost a little bit of cohesion and we have to sort it out. We need to get better pretty quickly."

England captain Mike Tindall added: "We had so much ball, so much possession and we didn't come away with anything. We have to go back and review things properly. We have to take it on the chin."

Around the BBC

Related internet links

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.