In his BBC Sport column, England captain George Williams discusses the disappointment following the first Test loss at Wembley against Australia, as well as the desire to improve in game two at Hill Dickinson Stadium.
The aches and pains of Saturday’s game at Wembley might have started to fade but the disappointment of losing takes a bit longer to drift away.
We didn’t really give the best account of ourselves. Australia are a quality team. We showed some good signs and missed a few opportunities and they took theirs. At that level, you get stung pretty quickly if you don’t concentrate and don’t take your chances, and I think that’s what happened.
They are a good team, but we also believe that we can match it with them. I reckon if we’d gone in 6-6 at half-time, or even 6-4 down, it could have been a totally different game. I thought in the first half we had our chances; in the second half, they were a lot more clinical and better than us. I also don’t think the scoreline reflected the game, but that shows the quality that we’re playing against.
We put a lot of effort, time and energy into preparing for that Test and we just didn’t get it right, unfortunately. We brought some physicality to some stages of the game but in other moments we just missed the boat, so there has been loads to work on.
The good thing we’ve got two more cracks at it.
