These are your rugby headlines on the morning of Sunday, October 22.
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These are your rugby headlines on the morning of Sunday, October 22.
Owen Farrell delivered a powerful post-match interview following England's defeat to South Africa in Paris. England had led the semi-final encounter until the 77th minute of the match but the Boks sneaked the result right at the death.
Farrell was at the heart of everything good and bad for England, playing with his heart on his sleeve with the occasion threatening to overawe him at one stage, with ITV pundit Ben Kay telling Farrell's team-mates to "grab hold of him".
But post-match the England fly-half conducted a classy .interview in which he showed his true colours.
"We can sit here and pick at anything," he told ITV after the game when asked where it was won and lost.
READ MORE: Owen Farrell conduct criticised as pundit tells team-mates to 'grab hold of him'
READ MORE: England v South Africa referee Ben O’Keeffe receives remarkable hostile reception
"We can go through the whole game, the whole second half and pick out any moment, my overriding feeling now is not too much about the game, it's about how proud I am of our group, how proud I am of the work they've done over the last five months together.
"It's not all gone our way. The fight that we've shown today and the effort that's been put in and just the sheer will at times today, I thought was outstanding. I hope we made everyone back home proud as well."
"That's always the case, isn't it?" Farrell replied when asked about whether this was the end for some of England's players on the international stage.
"This is definitely the last World Cup for some of them. Who knows what comes next but what I do know is this team has got a bright future.
"We've kind of been through it all, from the warm-up games. Cards thrown at us, left, right and centre. Everything, really. It's been a real rollercoaster but to show the pride and to show the passion that we did today, I'm unbelievably proud and I said, I hope everyone back home is."
England legend and ITV pundit Lawrence Dallaglio has pointed the finger at semi-final referee Ben O'Keefe, saying the official will be "the talking point" as he "won South Africa the game".
O'Keefe awarded the Springboks a penalty with three minutes left on the clock in Paris, pinging Ellis Genge for going down on one knee in the scrum.
The call would prove decisive, with Handre Pollard striking the resulting penalty over to win the game for the Springboks. Dallaglio says England deserve immense credit for their performance but say the penalty call was "questionable".
"Credit to their (South Africa's) coaching staff for recognising that maybe their selection in the first place was not the right selection, they didn't waste any time, they were brutal with their substitution, they brought their better players on early in the game In the second half," he told ITV Sport.
"And I thought England were magnificent. It's heartbreaking to be on the end of the result like that I just think in the final analysis we couldn't build scoreboard pressure. We had a couple of opportunities in the 22, one scrum and one lineout that went missing and the bomb squad came on. Four penalties given away in the last 10 minutes
"I've got to say, not as a sore loser but independently that's a questionable penalty that wins the game. Ellis Genge goes down on one knee. I mean, Ben O'Keefe is going to be the talking point as he's the won them the game, rather than South Africa. I think England can feel heartbroken, but South Africa deserved it just because a bit like France, the quality and depth on their bench was enough to get them over the line."
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New Zealand star Will Jordan says it's an honour to be in the same company as Jonah Lomu, Bryan Habana and Julian Savea after notching up eight tries at the Rugby World Cup.
A hat-trick in the All Blacks' semi-final demolition of Argentina has put Jordan firmly on course to be the competition's top try scorer, with the final match still to be played against the Boks next weekend.
The scores against the Pumas put him in illustrious company. “It is pretty humbling to be honest," he said. "When you think about those guys, they were all huge legends of the game and, particularly in the position I play, really trail-blazed the way to play the game as a winger. So that’s pretty cool.
“It definitely wasn’t anything I set out to do or anything like that, but it’s nice to be able to do that in amongst the team going so well.”
He could have had a fourth try against the South Americans but the chance was butchered by team-mate Richie Mo’unga. Did Jordan have a word with him post-match? “Ha, no, Richie has put me over for that many tries over the course of my career, so no issues there," he joked. "I’m just really proud of Richie and the way he is playing, the way he has stood up as a leader and steered us around the park. He was great again last night. He is going good and I'm happy for him to keep backing himself.”
Dai Flanagan says he's "gutted" after his Dragons side threw away a commanding lead to lose to Edinburgh at home. In the season curtain-raiser in the URC, the home side held a 14-point lead at one stage, only to go down 22-17 in Newport.
But the visitors slowly worked their way into the arm wrestle and Flanagan's charges lacked that killer instinct to put the Scots to the sword. Although disappointed, Flanagan says now is not the time to over-react, with derby week coming up next for the Men of Gwent.
“I am gutted, the second quarter was when we lost it,” said Flanagan. “We lost momentum and lost the ref with our decisions and ill-discipline. We lost the momentum and he was refereeing one team then, and rightly so because we didn’t pull it back.
“We gave away 20 penalties – you would win at any level, let alone URC with that, especially with a kicker like Ben Healy in the opposition. We can’t concede so many penalties off a maul or scrum, giving them easy outs. Sometimes you have to be whiter than white and take your medicine so that they kick the ball and you can go back at them. We didn’t do that.”
“We can’t overreact,” added Flanagan. “We know that it’s our biggest work-on, we spoke about it all summer and we were pleased in pre-season when we managed to win the games at the death (against the Ospreys and Scarlets).
“This is another step up, this actually counts and that’s the disappointing thing. Sometimes you’d rather turn up and get hammered and have loads to work on instead of fine-tuning. It’s derby week now and we need to look hard at ourselves because we can’t repeat this.”