Were England really 36 points worse than South Africa at Twickenham last Saturday? We didn't think so.
There's no hiding from the fact we were outplayed, and that the Boks were by far the better team on the day. But in the dressing room afterwards, the first thing Johnno told us was that we didn't deserve to lose by such a massive margin.
Don’t get me wrong - we were all devastated to be on the end of a scoreline like that. We've been criticised for the performance but the frustrating thing was that, just as against Australia the week before, we enjoyed plenty of territory and possession without turning it into points.
It’s not like we were dominated for 80 minutes and the next step for us now is to find that cutting edge to score tries and punish the opposition when we have them on the back foot.
But I can only take my hat off to the Boks for the way they restricted us. They were very, very clever in slowing our ball down and spoiling good attacking situations. A second here or there is crucial at Test level and the best teams in the world always make it count.
It was difficult for me to get my running game going at any point, but if I'm honest I was quite pleased with certain aspects of my performance. I made a couple of breaks and was inches from getting over the try-line at one point.
We should have capitalised on their two yellow cards but to be fair to them, they just never gave us an inch. Their tackling was outstanding.
It's worth mentioning again that this is a very young England team - it was only our third game together - and we're not going to become world-beaters overnight. It will be a long process, no matter which players Johnno chooses going forward. There will be ups and downs along the way Saturday was certainly a down.
But the great thing is we have a chance to put things right. We let people down last Saturday but now we have a chance to make amends against New Zealand. And we're absolutely determined to put a bit of pride back in the England shirt.
Everyone in the squad is pulling in the same direction: now we have to go out at Twickenham on Saturday and deliver.
