Legendary number eight Lawrence Dallaglio believes that the poor form of the current England outfit means that an early exit is a distinct possibility.
The Red Rose are fortunate to be on the easier side of the Rugby World Cup draw with them set to face none of the current top five until the semi-finals should they get there.
Argentina are the only the other top 10 in their group, with Japan, Samoa and World Cup newcomers Chile making up the rest of Pool D.
England would ordinarily be clear favourites to make the last-eight, but their form has been so dreadful in the build-up that Dallaglio is concerned about their chances.
2015 embarrassment
They have exited at the group stage once before and that came in 2015, where they finished third behind Australia and Wales.
“I didn’t think that England were going to win the World Cup before the warm-up games. I’m even more confident about that now,” Dallaglio told The Good, The Bad & The Rugby podcast.
“The key question is, is this the all-time low or have we got a little bit further to go?
“We are on the right side of the draw in terms of everyone thinking that if we could pull out a few performances we could end up in a quarter-final or could easily be in a semi-final.
“My concern now is beating Argentina and about beating Japan because those two teams are pretty well organised, Argentina particularly.
“My expectations have gone right the way down. Never mind the knockout stages, let’s just worry about getting out of the group because it’s been horrendous.
“I didn’t watch the Fiji game thankfully, and obviously half the stadium decided not to watch which tells you everything you need to know about the England team.”
Players’ response to poor form
Steve Borthwick’s men have been slated in the lead-up to the global tournament, which resulted in props Ellis Genge and Joe Marler hitting back on social media.
Both released tweets responding to criticism with Genge particularly vociferous.
The Bristol loosehead first wrote: “Write us off now, all the best,” before adding in another message: “To all the @EnglandRugby fans *supporting* us, we know we’re not where we need to be at all right now.
“We will get there, stick with us through the dark, thanks for the love we appreciate it.”
Dallaglio insisted that the criticism has not been over the top and called on the players to “own it.”
“We’ve lost three of our four warm-up games. This is not a media assassination on the squad,” he added.
“As a player – we’ve all been there – you need to own your own performances. We were quite fortunate to win the game against Wales at Twickenham.
“I can’t remember any England side going into a World Cup with such little expectation. Maybe that will be a good thing because people will write us off and opponents will underestimate us.
“There is some amazingly talented players in that group, but for whatever reason they are not producing at the moment.”
READ MORE: Sir Clive Woodward: England’s ‘sobering’ defeat to Fiji ‘has been coming for years’
The article ‘It’s been horrendous’ – England legend fears another pool stage exit appeared first on Planetrugby.com.
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