Tom Curry insists England’s players must take responsibility for the inability to close out winning positions and adopt a “no excuses” mentality for Saturday’s clash with Australia.
Steve Borthwick has now overseen three consecutive defeats to New Zealand, with the team throwing away final-quarter leads on each occasion, leading to losses by a combined total of 10 points.
Factor in also falling agonisingly short against South Africa and France over the last 12 months and the string of near-misses against sides ranked in the top four in the world has become a recurring pattern, apart from a superb victory over Ireland in March.
Curry believes the onus is on his England team-mates to reverse the trend – starting with the Wallabies’ visit to Allianz Stadium.
“We can’t be making excuses. As players we have to step up and be more consistent,” Curry said.
“We won’t make promises, but we’ve not been good enough. In the last quarter we as players definitely have to stand up. It’s about the full 80 minutes.
“We obviously made mistakes and we’ve recognised that. There’s stuff we were doing in the last quarter that we’re not doing in the first 60.
“Discipline-wise, we let ourselves down. At 40 minutes it was one penalty conceded, two penalties at 60 minutes and then at 80 minutes it had built up (to seven in total).
“A, that’s three points and B, it gave New Zealand territory and they are pretty clinical. That is a big factor.
“If we solved this the whole time, sport would be easy. That’s the beauty of it – we have to find a way.
“There’s nothing coming externally that we haven’t heard. We’ve had all the right messages from the coaches. We as players need to step up. There are no excuses.”
As one of England’s most influential players, Curry has a prominent role to play in addressing the habit of unravelling in the final quarter.
And the all-action Sale flanker insists his job is made easier due to the presence in the back row of Chandler Cunningham-South, the big hitting Harlequin whose ferocious tackle on New Zealand’s Tupou Vaa’i last Saturday brought Twickenham to its feet.
“Seeing Chandler step up was really impressive. But the stuff you saw – the physicality and the big hits – are the end process,” Curry said.
“But for the whole week, Steve was brilliant with him in terms of his line-out role, technique and getting him up to speed knowledge-wise. He has made so many steps with that, which people probably don’t see.
“There were only a handful of line-outs, but he’s been brilliant with learning that six role. If he excels at that, then Ben Earl and myself can focus on what we do well.
“I’m really impressed with how Chandler has really got his head down, but also how he has stayed true to himself. He brought out the best of himself and hopefully gets better and better.”
Against New Zealand, Curry partially realised his boyhood dream of playing for England alongside his twin brother Ben.
Ben replaced his younger sibling in the 59th minute, but they were still able to celebrate being present in the same matchday squad.
“We managed to get a photo together and we managed to enjoy it. The frustration is losing in an England shirt,” Curry said.