Stuart Lancaster admits Australia clash 'a must-win game'
Thursday 1 October 2015 16:12, UK
Head coach Stuart Lancaster accepts it is make or break time for England - and his own career - against Australia on Saturday night.
England must beat Australia to have any chance of reaching the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals. A second defeat in eight days - the hosts lost 28-25 to Wales at Twickenham last week - will almost certainly see them become the first World Cup hosts to be dumped out at the pool phase.
Lancaster has his first-choice centre pairing of Jonathan Joseph and Brad Barritt back together. Joseph returns after missing the Wales game with a chest injury. In the pack Joe Launchbury and Ben Morgan replace the injured Courtney Lawes and Billy Vunipola respectively.
Asked if his entire time with England is riding on Saturday night's Twickenham showdown he said: "I think that's fair to say. It's a must-win game because if we lose we don't get out of the group.
"So there's no point hiding where the accountability lies. As a head coach you don't take the players beyond Saturday, you take them to Saturday.
"You put them in the right place to play a strong game on Saturday. There's no denying it, the stakes are huge for us, but the boys will be ready.
"I'm not going beyond this game, there's a lot of things to play out over the next two weeks.
"You can't spend your time thinking about what's happened in the past or what might happen in the future.
"If you distract yourself with the what-ifs then you aren't doing your job. It was a big blow to lose Jonathan Joseph last week, he's hard to replace.
There's no point hiding where the accountability lies.
"To have him back in the team is a real positive. I still had my fingers crossed in the fitness test yesterday, but he's ready to play."
Former Australia coach Bob Dwyer has claimed Joe Marler cuts illegal angles at the scrum, but Lancaster refused to be drawn.
"We don't get a chance to speak to referees before World Cup games but we're in constant dialogue with [referees manager] Joel Jutge," said Lancaster.
"Certainly over the last couple of years we've had very good feedback from him, consistently.
"I think our scrum has been good, honest and excellent across the last three years.
"We've also got a high-quality referee in Romain Poite and he's more than capable of refereeing this game without anyone's help I'm sure."
Australia boss Michael Cheika accepts England believe the Wallabies have a "weak" forward pack, but Lancaster denied that as the general perception among his squad.
"No I don't," said Lancaster, when asked if he thinks Australia have an underpowered pack.
"They've improved but I think we can put pressure on them. Their breakdown, they've got two very, very good breakdown experts [David Pocock and Michael Hooper]."
