Media unimpressed by ‘lucky’ England

England’s Sunday newspapers were unimpressed by their team’s performance in their World Cup opener in New Zealand, saying they were lucky to scrape past Argentina 13-9.

“You’re hardly the All Blacks, England,” read a sarcastic headline in the Mail on Sunday, referring to their controversial black change strip.

“For much of their opening game, England looked anything but world-beaters,” the paper said. The Sunday Times described the Pool B result as “one of the most fortuitous victories in England’s most recent history”, in which Argentina dominated but were blighted by mistakes and bad luck. “If they do not improve mightily, then their World Cup will amount to nothing much more than a lucky victory against a better team and the suspicion at the moment is that Argentina, through their own tactical failings and sheer ill luck, had an awful lot more to do with the final result than did the eventual winners,” the newspaper said.

LONDON, Sept 11, 2011 (AFP)