Lancaster Considers Position As England Lose
Stuart Lancaster has said he will be considering his future in the wake of England's historic group-stage exit from the Rugby World Cup.
The 33-13 defeat to Australia at Twickenham means England cannot now reach the quarter-finals whatever happens against Uruguay next week.
That makes Lancaster's side the first World Cup hosts to be eliminated before the knockout stage begins, and talk after the game quickly turned to the head coach's future.
Lancaster has a contract until 2020, but when he was asked whether he would now be considering his position he replied: "Yeah, obviously I think I've got to. It's not just going to be my decision.
"We've still got another week to go. My priority is to get the team ready for Uruguay. It's not up to me what happens elsewhere, so we've still got a lot of work to do. The responsibility and accountability lies with me."
Lancaster was clearly upset by the manner of England's exit from the tournament, but he believes the future is bright given the relative inexperience of the side, even if he ends up not being in charge of it.
"I'm just gutted, gutted for all the fans and everyone at home. I'm sorry we let everyone down," he said. "The last 20 minutes Australia dominated and deserved to win.
"There are some fantastic young players in that England team. There's 24 players playing their first World Cup and it's going to hurt so badly. It's going to be a good team and I want the country to stay behind the team because they are good lads.
"Well done to Australia on the win today, but from my point of view I'm absolutely gutted to be going out of the World Cup and more so our own World Cup obviously.
"Words can't express how disappointed we are. We've had some fantastic supporters and we feel we've let them down. But credit to Australia, they deserved the win."
Asked if England lacked killer instinct he said: "Yeah I think that's fair. Strip back the emotion and look at the game and I thought the first half was pretty even. The score never reflected that.
"There was a crucial scrum penalty that went against us, Australia scored on the back of that and that made it 17-3. Take the last 10 minutes aside we played some good stuff.
"I thought David Pocock was outstanding on the day. At times when we really threatened the Australian line there was a turnover he was involved with.
"And we scored four tries against Fiji, 22-12 up against Wales and couldn't finish the job - so it's a fair point."
