It must be one of the biggest turnarounds in the history of World Cups, for Samoa to lose 60-6 to England in the first game and then beat them in the semi-finals.
Fair play to Samoa, they did step up. But it was a litany of errors from England, they just made so many mistakes. And if you don’t take opportunities in big games, you’re not going to win.
The thing is, despite all the mistakes, we got to overtime. We did come through all the tests, all the fire and brimstone. We even charged down the first drop goal in overtime. How many chances do you need?
The players are going to carry that result around for a long time, probably for the rest of their lives. You’re never going to be separated from it. There’s a lot of players who have seen the opportunity pass them by. They won’t play in a World Cup final or semi-final again. They are done.
England missed an opportunity and I’m sure they know it. As the years go by it’s easier to deal with, time is a great healer but it’s still there and when you see it on YouTube or clips of the game on telly, it does come back.
It’s brought back a lot of memories for me. I did shed a bit of a tear on my walk on Sunday if I’m honest, thinking partly of my own mortality and what I’ve done in the game and that I didn’t manage to win a World Cup.
Not that it’s about me but you take things personally as an England fan and you’re more connected to it as a former player because you can feel their pain, and you know what the players are going through. They’re really going to be feeling the pain now. We needed the Emirates Stadium to be full for Saturday’s game.
From where I was sat, it didn’t seem like the setting for a World Cup semi-final, so that was a bit soul destroying. We might have been better off having the game at Brentford.
I went to see Brentford Ladies football team against Watford on Sunday, that’s a much smaller stadium and there was only 5,000 people there, but it had a better atmosphere than the 40,000 crowd at the Emirates.
I was told there was a better atmosphere for the Australia against New Zealand semi-final.
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