RWC 2015: England would have qualified for the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals if they had drawn against Wales

The failure to at least draw with Wales has cost England a place in the last eight of their own World Cup

Chris Robshaw walks down the tunnel at the City of Manchester Stadium (Getty Images)

England bowed out of their own Rugby World Cup on Saturday night with a comprehensive 60-3 victory over Uruguay, but they were immediately left to rue the defeat by Wales two weeks ago that has cost them a place in the quarter-finals.

Both No 8 Nick Easter and wing Jack Nowell – who were both called up to the squad for their first starts of the World Cup – scored hat-tricks as England ran in 10 tries to boost their points difference and secure a bonus point victory.

All of this was in vain, of course, as back-to-back losses to Wales and Australia had already consigned Stuart Lancaster’s side to en embarrassingly early exit.

However, it was made immediately aware of how close England had come to reaching the quarter-finals. Australia’s 15-6 victory over Wales at Twickenham on Saturday meant that the Wallabies topped Pool A with 17 points after four wins from four and a bonus-point coming against Uruguay.

Wales ended up second with 13 points, having won three of their four matches and just one bonus point – which also came against the South Americans.

England finished in third place with 11 points, but had Chris Robshaw and his teammates elected to go for a penalty and bid to tie the Wales encounter at 28-28 with just a minute remaining, they would be through to the World Cup quarter-finals and it would be Wales that suffered an early exit.

Here’s how the table would have looked had England drawn 28-28 with Wales:

	Played	Won	Drawn	Loss	PF	PA	PD	BP	Points
Australia	4	4	0	0	141	35	106	1	17
England	4	2	1	1	136	75	61	2	12
Wales	4	2	1	1	111	65	46	1	11
Fiji	4	1	0	3	84	101	-17	1	5
Uruguay	4	0	0	4	30	226	-196	0	0

As is the way with any sporting scenario of this manner, it’s not a given that Owen Farrell would have scored the penalty from a tight angle. However, it’s a lot less far-fetched than it sounds. The fly-half had scored all six of his kicks at goal as well as convert a drop-goal, and the Saracens No 10 backs his goal kicking as one of the strongest aspects of his game.

But hindsight is a wonderful thing, and history will show that Robshaw and Co made the decision to go to the corner in a bid to win the match and ended up losing. The heavy defeat to Australia did not help matters either, as the failure to show up at Twickenham meant that they were the first big casualty of the Rugby World Cup.