Lancaster: England 'Gutted' By World Cup Loss

England rugby coach Stuart Lancaster has watched his team's defeat at the hands of Australia a second time and says he stands by his players.

On Saturday night, the English crashed out of the World Cup after losing 33-13 to Australia at Twickenham, making them the first World Cup hosts to fail to reach the knockout stages of the tournament.

Lancaster told a Sunday morning press conference: "I think there are a lot of good young players in the (England) team, I think the foundations are strong...but clearly we weren't ready to win and get out of this pool.

"We're not going to hide behind anything else. Credit to Australia and apologies to everyone else because we're absolutely gutted."

He said: "Australia had 750 caps in their starting team and we had 450. We can go through the whys and the wherefors of that but we'd have to go right back to 2011...this England team is going to have to go through some sort of evolution."

When asked after the game if he would consider resigning, he told reporters: "Yeah, obviously I think I've got to. It's not just going to be my decision... The responsibility and accountability lies with me, so clearly."

On Sunday morning he said it was too soon to be making any decisions "just 12 hours after the final whistle".

Flanker Tom Wood echoed his coach's apology, saying: "It was a bad day, a really bad day. I can't explain how much it hurts. I want to thank everybody for their support over the last few months and apologise that we didn't have enough. The changing room is in despair."

After losing last weekend to Wales, England needed to beat two-time champion Australia to maintain a chance of progressing to the quarterfinals from the difficult Pool A.

But flyhalf Bernard Foley orchestrated England's demise, scoring all but five of Australia's points.

It didn't start well, with Foley crossing for two tries, converting them both, and adding a penalty to give the Wallabies a 17-3 lead at half-time.

He extended the lead to 17 points with a penalty soon after, before Anthony Watson got England back into the game with a strong try in the 56th. Owen Farrell converted and added a penalty goal to make it 20-13.

Farrell was given a yellow card in the 71st for a shoulder charge on Matt Giteau, leaving England a man short and conceding another three points to Foley.

Foley added another penalty and Giteau touched down in the right corner seconds before full-time to ruin England's party.

After the match, former England hooker Brian Moore took to Twitter to say: "England RWC - no excuses from me. In the end, we simply were not good enough. Good Night, and Good Luck."

England must now face Uruguay next weekend.

Source: SkyNews