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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