England's World Cup disappointment serves as a lesson for Cobblers

England's failure to win the Rugby World Cup following their superb semi-final victory over New Zealand in 2019 should be a warning to the Cobblers ahead of the League Two play-off final next week.

Eddie Jones' team took down the pre-tournament favourites and defending champions in ruthless fashion, winning 19-7, to set up a meeting with South Africa in the final.

They were thought to be strong favourites to lift the trophy but failed to back up their efforts from the semi-final and were ultimately well beaten by the Springboks.

After producing a monumental semi-final performance of their own, Cobblers must now be careful of not falling into the same trap.

"Yes, definitely, and it's very easy to think that it'll be straightforward to repeat that performance against Exeter on Monday and we'll just play that way," said midfielder Alan McCormack.

"In order to play like that and get results like that, it's about the work you do leading up to it and the work you do on the pitch because the basics and the fundamentals of playing football should never change.

"You should always go out and play to that level and that ability and we proved on Monday that that's our standard and that's our way of playing."

And not only is it a case of maintaining their standards from Whaddon Road but also improving them.

"There's no point reaching a final and then not performing," added McCormack. "There'll be more pressure on to repeat that performance but the focus from everyone in the group is not just repeating that performance but improving it.

"There are probably still aspects of that game that we could improve on. It's being critical but being the people we are, we want to learn each game and we'll look back on it and see what we can improve.

"We could have scored five or six so you've got to look at little things to improve and to strive to be better week in, week out. The consistency levels have been there this season and now we've just got to prove it again and do it one more time."