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Owen Farrell admitted his relief that his shot clock blunder did not cost England victory as they scraped past Samoa in their final World Cup group game.<\/p>\n
England needed a late Danny Care try to defeat magnificent Islander opposition in an error-ridden 18-17 victory in Lille that will have sent the spirits of likely quarter-final opponents Fiji soaring.<\/p>\n
A crucial moment came in the 64th minute when Farrell was lining up a routine penalty with the team 17-11 behind only for the time to run out on the shot clock \u2013 the first time it has happened in this tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t see the clock. I wasn\u2019t aware. It was above where I was picking my target. I got lost a little bit in the kick,\u201d Farrell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t good enough and I\u2019m glad for the team\u2019s sake that it didn\u2019t cost us. Hopefully it doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
England had already qualified for the quarter-finals as Pool D winners but this night in Lille was a backwards step that evoked memories of August\u2019s dismal warm-up campaign.<\/p>\n
Head coach Steve Borthwick accepted it was a poor performance but valued the hard-fought run out before the knockout phase begins.<\/p>\n
\u201cImmense credit to Samoa, I thought they played brilliantly,\u201d said Borthwick, who revealed that Manu Tuilagi suffered an injury that forced him off.<\/p>\n
\u201cSamoa spoke about it being their World Cup final and that\u2019s exactly how they played. They tested us and forced us into a lot of errors,\u201d Borthwick said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a scrappy performance for a long period by us in a real tough Test. As we look towards next week, I wanted a tough Test \u2013 and that\u2019s exactly what we got.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot that was not at the required standard \u2013 lots of errors, mistakes, scrappiness and for a period there were too many penalties. And then the players got hold of it on the pitch and found a way to get the result.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot has been said before about this England team when it is in tough circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow the team was in tough circumstances against Samoa. We didn\u2019t want to be there, we didn\u2019t want to play the way that got us in those tough circumstances but this team found a way out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samoa head coach Seilala Mapusua feels less-established teams such as his Islanders are battling against \u201cunconscious bias\u201d from officials when they face the heavyweights.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked the question if the referees have an unconscious bias when a tier-one team plays a tier-two team. I believe there is and I believe there has been in the past,\u201d Mapusua said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s anyone\u2019s fault, it\u2019s what I\u2019ve seen in our game for the last however many years, since I was playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart breaks for these boys. I thought they deserved a lot more than they got from that game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt we did enough to earn a victory. Such is the cruel nature of sport, it wasn\u2019t to be. In terms of the effort it\u2019s a pretty tough one to take.\u201d<\/p>\n