"The thing that stood out for me was our inability to make tackles. Unfortunately in a contact sport, it's somewhat essential."
"Sometimes if you're clinical in attack you can get away with it but we were not clinical or good at tackling. The game could have gone either way, both teams had weak points but when the final whistle blew we had less points on the board."
"It's that understanding on the field from your key decision-makers about how you translate the dominance we had at times in the scrum or line-out into points."
"At times we were driving them around at will yet we hardly had any kickable penalties. Teams don't just lie down and give you easy points. The boys are more disappointed than anyone of course, because they wanted a bronze medal."
"I've just had a conversation with Simon Worsnop, who's been helping us with our defence over the three years and when we started we made it into a real strength of ours, but this year we haven't translated that properly. Whether it's a one on one thing or a question of technique, it's something this team will work on in the future."
Fly half Freddie Burns of Gloucester agreed that as against Australia in the semi-final missed tackles had let England down.
"We're massively frustrated, obviously it wasn't the result we wanted. We did some good things but some really poor things as well. Disappointed would definitely be the word to sum it up."
My game was alright, I was happy with the majority of it, but there was a minority I wasn't happy with. I missed some tackles and it was missed tackles that cost us the game."
"I'm not too down, it was a disappointing way to end but we'll enjoy these last few hours together as a squad. It's the last time a lot of us will pull on the England shirt and it's the last time a lot of us will play together. The unity in this group is amazing, it's been a joy to play with these boys."
Hooker Jamie George (Saracens) agreed that their defence had let England down but like Burns was keen to point to the fact that he'd been part of a special group of players.
"We talked about consistency before the game but that was clearly the main reason we lost. We showed some real ambition, we were really dangerous in attack but our defence let us down. They scored one or two tries that were just too easy for them."
"It was a big game for me, my last game for the Under 20s after two years and I was very emotional coming off. I didn't want it to end. It's a special place to be in the Under 20s."
"I've learnt show much here from people like Tofty (Coach Mark Mapletoft) and Rob (Hunter), they're awesome coaches and they've brought my game on so much. Rob Buchanan, who came on for me, will relish the opportunity of playing next year and I wish him all the best. He's going to go far in the game."
New Zealand crushed Australia 62-17 to win the tournament for the third year in a row.
