Rob Andrew feels both England's players and the coaching staff will have learnt much from the first Test defeat to New Zealand.
Defensive errors leave fuming Ford feeling embarrassed
Rob Andrew feels both England's players and the coaching staff will have learnt much from the first Test defeat to New Zealand.
The All Blacks overcame a slow start in Auckland to put the tourists to the sword, scoring four tries as they ran out 37-20 winners.
After a battling start England's only tries came from debutant Topsy Ojo, though the winger's brace could not mask an error-strewn display.
Andrew, filling in for the absent Martin Johnson, who was no doubt watching on with great interest back home, admitted too many mistakes made life easy for New Zealand, something that must be put right ahead of the second Test.
Easy points
"Fundamentally, we made too many mistakes just before half-time and just after," he said. "We allowed the All Blacks too much easy possession and we allowed them too many easy points.
"For vast amounts of the game we were pretty competitive, ironically in the areas we thought New Zealand would challenge us.
"We are learning about players all the time. Test match rugby is a brutal place and if you make simple mistakes you will be punished, no matter how much hard work you do in other areas. There is a lesson for all the players."
Andrew could at least take heart from Ojo's double, the London Irish wideman galloping 80 metres for an intercept score to open his account before then collecting a kick from sub scrum-half Danny Care for his second late on.
"He took his chances really well and played pretty well in his all-round game," the former Newcastle director of rugby said.
"Both of them were exceptional opportunistic tries. He still had a lot of work to do when he got ball but that is why he is here.
"There is a lot of disappointment in the dressing room but there are also a lot of positives over some of the aspects of the game we took to the New Zealanders."
Dreadful defence
While Andrew looked for positives defence coach Mike Ford was left feeling "embarrassed" by the way England conceded, particularly from set pieces.
"It is pretty embarrassing sitting here as defence coach having conceded the tries that we did," he lamented.
"I don't think we got busted once in those areas during the Six Nations but tonight we were ripped apart.
"It is a bit of structure, a bit of one-on-one misses. It is definitely something we have to fix. The one thing we were pretty confident on was our set-piece defence and it was dreadful tonight."
