England to 'take learnings' on closing out matches

England's George Furbank will retain his place at full-back against Australia

Autumn Nations Series: England v Australia

Venue: Allianz Stadium, Twickenham Date: Saturday, 9 November Kick-off: 15:10 GMT

Coverage: Listen to live commentary on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra and BBC Sounds, follow live text commentary on the BBC Sport website and app.

Full-back George Furbank says England will "take their learnings" from a run of three narrow defeats by New Zealand as they prepare to face Australia in the Autumn Nations Series.

England surrendered leading positions on all three occasions as they lost their two-match summer series in New Zealand before opening their autumn campaign with a two-point home defeat by the All Blacks at Allianz Stadium last Saturday.

Steve Borthwick's side were also beaten 33-31 by France in their final Six Nations game this year after a last-minute Thomas Ramos penalty.

Furbank, 28, says England are aiming to improve their discipline and make "better decisions" in the closing stages of matches.

"Test rugby against the top sides is probably always going to come down to the last quarter but each match is different," Furbank told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"There are learnings to take from last week and the big one for us was the amount of penalties we conceded in the final quarter.

"We lost five, having conceded only a couple leading up to that.

"It's about being smart in that area to give you territory and close the game out. We have to be quicker at taking those learnings into games.

"Ultimately you just want to make good decisions and not allow the opposition in.

"If we kept that ball better we could have got down in their half, but we gave New Zealand momentum again."

England have beaten Australia in 10 of their last 11 meetings and will be favourites when the two sides renew their rivalry at Allianz Stadium on Saturday.

Furbank says the hosts want to play with the England "DNA" against Joe Schmidt's side, who have also lost their last three Tests.

"We probably didn't move the ball as well as we could have [against New Zealand] and we squandered a few opportunities, even before the last quarter," added Furbank.

"We need to get that right but it's about putting our DNA on the pitch, in the way we want to attack and defend.

"There might be opportunities to play through Australia or to go wide but it's about being loaded on the pitch to be able to pull both triggers."

'Maybe England need to chase tries'

England dominated the scrum in the first half against the All Blacks before conceding superiority after the break.

As the set-piece began to struggle, England resorted to box-kicking in an attempt to play for territory and push New Zealand back.

George Ford missed a late penalty and drop-goal attempt, which would have secured victory and rewarded their game plan, but Ugo Monye says Borthwick's side may be better suited to chancing their arm in attack.

"If England are not great at these close arm-wrestles, can we see if we can be great at playing a bit more and trying to score more tries?" former England wing Monye told BBC Rugby Union Weekly.

"If England had won against New Zealand, because George Ford should have kicked that penalty, they would have got away with it.

"But we didn’t have the scrum in the second half so maybe we need to chase tries. I reckon we would be better at that than trying to close out games."

England face world champions South Africa the weekend after playing Australia and Monye says the Springboks are so efficient at edging close matches because of their "weaponry".

South Africa beat England by one point in the World Cup semi-final last year, before lifting the trophy in the following game with victory over the All Blacks by the same margin.

Monye added: "South Africa are so brilliant at these arm wrestles because they have two weapons in generational players like [wingers] Kurt-Lee Arendse and Cheslin Kolbe who can do mental things.

"But also, if they are nine points down in the rain they have the scrum and a line-out to win a penalty and then they have a close to 100% goal kicker in Handre Pollard.

"So unless you have the weaponry, don’t bother."