Jamie George rounded on England’s “unacceptable” defending as they collapsed to a dramatic 42-37 defeat by Australia.
A week after falling 24-22 to New Zealand, England’s autumn deteriorated further on an afternoon when they appeared to have won the game three times only to see the Wallabies plunder the winning try through Max Jorgensen three minutes into overtime.
Head coach Steve Borthwick confirmed that Tom Curry will miss Saturday’s visit of South Africa after he was knocked out when making a tackle, while Immanuel Feyi-Waboso is also a major doubt because of a heavy blow to the head.
George pinpointed England’s leaky defence – they missed 35 tackles – as the main reason for a loss that has heaped pressure on the team, with fixtures against the Springboks and Japan left to play this month.
“Leaking 42 points at home is unacceptable and a large part of that is down to loss of collisions,” the captain said.
“Australia got front foot ball and they have got pretty good players out wide who made us look vulnerable.
“We are very proud in our defence. We massively believe in the system that we have but there are going to be some clips that will be difficult to watch because we needed to be more physical and make our tackles.
“Sometimes in a Test match like that you think the job is done. We took our foot off the gas. Credit to Australia, they were very good, but we cannot keep doing that. It will be a tough one to watch back.”
A Marcus Smith-inspired comeback that produced two touch downs for Ollie Sleightholme placed England on the brink of victory until a late exchange of tries between Andrew Kellaway and Maro Itoje scrambled the brains of everyone at Twickenham.
But there was still one final twist as Australia, who were outstanding in attack, created space down the left for Jorgensen to have the final say.
England knew they only had themselves to blame for a fourth successive defeat.
“It’s a game we should have won. We were in a position to win multiple times,” Borthwick said.
“When you turn over that much ball and make the game that unstructured against a team with that much pace, you’re giving them opportunities. We gave them far too many opportunities.
“Every England supporter and every England player or anyone associated with the team is gutted right now.”
Smith was outstanding for the hosts and he drove the team on with his appetite for attack, drawing rich praise from Australia boss Joe Schmidt.
“Marcus was pretty useful. He pulls the strings really well,” Schmidt said.
“We were keen to suffocate him, but he just kept breathing. He finds little spaces between you. He’s even confident bringing the ball back. He’s not afraid of the physical contact.
“We have a chase line with some big men in the middle of it. He doesn’t mind picking them out and creating a focus point that England can base their next phase off. I thought he was very good.”