England wrongly robbed of win over New Zealand but performance will be far more pleasing for Eddie Jones

TMO Marius Jonker was wrong to make such a definitive decision with inconclusive evidence, but Eddie Jones will instead look to the performance that suggests England can win the Rugby World Cup

England went toe-to-toe with the best in the world, with a weakened side, and came within a whisker of walking away with victory.

But that is only half of the story. As New Zealand celebrated a hard-fought victory, England had reason to feel wronged, given that Sam Underhill’s late disallowed try was chalked off when it should not have been.

With the scores finely balanced at 16-15 in New Zealand’s favour and little over four minutes left on the clock, Courtney Lawes embarked on a curving run towards the ruck and jumped high enough to charge down replacement scrum-half TJ Perenara’s clearing box-kick. Reacting first, Underhill collected the ball as it ricocheted off Scott Barrett and the flanker sent last man Beauden Barrett the wrong way to touch down in the corner and apparently seal what looked to be the most unlikely of victories of the Eddie Jones era.

Yet after awarding the try, referee Jerome Garces changed his mind and called on television match official Marius Jonker to check that Lawes was onside at the time of the blocked kick.

“As the half-back picks up the ball, number 20 white is in an offside position,” came the response. “It’s offside so you need to change your on-field decision to a penalty, as he picks up the ball he is in an offside position.”

That was the verdict of Jonker. That verdict was produced from looking at two cameras angles, a close up and long view from the same angle that, given it was not in line with the ball, did not clearly show whether Lawes was in-line with the back of the ruck or offside.

And that’s the problem. Lawes may have been offside, he may have been onside, but even in the post-match analysis on Sky Sports, their footage concluded that his front foot was bang on the offside line. With inches in it, there was no telling whether the lock was in the wrong or not.

Under the new World Rugby directives, brought in this weekend to trial new laws to make the TMO less important and give back responsibility for decisions to the on-field referee, Garces was required to make the decision. His decision on the field, evidently, was to award a try as he gave it as soon as Underhill crossed the whitewash. To counter that, Jonker needed ‘any relevant information taken into consideration must be CLEAR and OBVIOUS and in the context of materiality’, and even then ‘provide the match referee with his advice and recommendations’, not a definitive decision.

Lawes charged down Perenara but saw Underhill's resulting try disallowed (Getty)

It took Sky nearly 20 minutes after the final whistle to determine that Lawes’ foot was on the offside line at the moment that Perenara lifted the ball off the turf, and with such slim margins being between on and offside, it’s hard to see where Jonker saw the conclusive evidence that Lawes was offside. Whichever screen he was watching, he was clearly sharing it with All Blacks coach Steve Hansen, whose claim that Lawes was so far offside he was “in the half-back’s back pocket” after the match more than raised an eyebrow.

Of course, England can’t have it all their own way. Where this decision goes against them, last week’s went in their favour as Owen Farrell got away with a shoulder charge on Andre Esterhuizen that would have given South Africa a chance at goal to win the match. With that in mind, both Farrell and Jones were accepting of the ruling, at least publicly, but that’s probably because the performance meant far more than the single match-deciding incident.

Garces should have made the on-field decision but instead took the call from the TMO (Reuters)

Jones went into the match with 17 players unavailable for selection, and while not all of those are first-choice options, there’s no doubt that this is a weakened England team. For New Zealand, they were a Joe Moody and Sam Cane short of their best side, while Sonny Bill Williams’ early withdrawal through injury actually helped their cause as Ryan Crotty brought far more fluidity to their back line. England on the other hand are without the Vunipola brothers, Joe Launchbury, Tom Curry and - potentially - Manu Tuilagi that would add significant power and talent to their side. Had they been available for Saturday afternoon’s encounter, it’s hard to see how England would have lost.

What Jones is able to look at now is a squad showing the kind of depth that he demanded all those years ago when he replaced Stuart Lancaster in order to make a serious bid for the 2019 Rugby World Cup. That is now starting to appear before his very eyes; Mako Vunipola and Ellis Genge will return from injury to join looseheads Ben Moon and Alec Hepburn, Billy Vunipola and Nathan Hughes will join Mark Wilson at No 8, Curry, Underhill and Sam Simmonds suddenly give England options at openside, and we haven’t even mentioned Danny Cipriani once this autumn.

Sam Underhill thought he'd secured England victory over New Zealand (Getty)

There’s no doubt that England are back moving in the right direction after a difficult 2017/18, and it adds weight to Jones’ admission that the post-Lions fallout was far greater than he could have ever imagined. With a win over the Springboks and a narrow one-point defeat against the All Blacks in the record books, Jones will expect to pile the points on Japan next weekend before facing an Australia side that despite conceding just nine points to Wales on Saturday evening still managed to lose.

The future was bleak not so long ago, but out of the thunderstorm above Twickenham on Saturday, a bright dawn started to appear once again.