Give Robshaw a break

Pity poor Chris Robshaw. England’s sturdy captain might have a knockout girlfriend and exceptional skills on the cappuccino machine, but he has taken one hell of a pounding from Her Majesty’s armchair battalion of former players and coaches, much more than he took from Sam Warburton at Twickenham on Saturday. Give the guy a break. His decision to go for a line-out and set up a possible winning try rather than attempt a very difficult penalty kick at goal to draw ‘defied belief’ said one newspaper, the same paper that described a similar decision by the Japan captain Michael Leitch in that miraculous last-gasp victory over South Africa as ‘faultless’. One captain is bold and brave, the other muddled and confused, suffering a ‘moment of madness’. Oh please.

Here’s a few things: the kick was never a certainty, even with Owen Farrell in spectacularly good form; had he missed, the Welsh would have had possession and could have advanced upfield, scored and deprived England of even a losing bonus point; World Cup-winning sides tend to win all their games so if you want to win the cup, you must win your games, and not settle for a functional draw when the chance is there for a romantic win.