Steve Hansen takes blame for All Blacks' 2019 failure

Their favourites tag was enhanced further by their 23-13 win over the Springboks in pool play, but they came up short against an inspired England outfit in the semi-finals, losing 19-7. 

"I have to take the blame. We beat Ireland pretty convincingly in the quarter-finals," Hansen told The Times.

œI earmarked that as a danger but we also had Kieran Read injured and I was trying to make sure we didn't lose confidence if he was out.

"I wasn't demanding enough. I didn't push enough buttons and we went in a little soft mentally and England came in on fire.

"World Cups are the hardest things to win. We were good enough to win in 2007 and we were good enough to win in 2019, but we didn™t. And that's the facts. That tells you how hard it is to win it.

"You have to survive three weeks in a row against really good opponents. You have a mental slip and are a few per cent down and the other team are five per cent above themselves, then you are gone."

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