Lancaster lauds ‘growing maturity’ of young team

There was no trumpet blowing, just the feeling of quiet unadulterated satisfaction from England coach Stuart Lancaster that his “young side” had taken on and beaten “one of the best” in yesterday’s Grand Slam eliminator.

England’s 12-6 victory will be remembered more for a lack of oomph than anything else but neither Lancaster nor his joyous squad will care that much. “There were some key moments in the game as there would be in one this close, but the way we managed ourselves after the sin binning (James Haskell) in the second half gave us a foot in the game and towards the end we grew in strength. I was very pleased with the maturity in closing the game out.”

Lancaster admitted there were difficult moments, several of them in fact, when his side were on the rack. “We came in at half-time pleased with the first-half display but then had a couple of turnovers in the scrum, a couple of line-outs didn’t go our way. Ireland were good, they were in the ascendancy, then we lost James to the bin but the way we managed ourselves during that period and to end up 12-6 at the finish of it was good.