England may have lost to New Zealand but the game was in their hands and that will be the most frustrating part for Jamie George and his team.

It wasn’t like they were trying to chase the game or the referee made a bad call or a dodgy bounce of the ball.

It was all very much controllable.

They played some really great stuff from the off and just had a 15-minute period late on, where they thought they had control of the game, but made a couple of errors with some ill-discipline.

I thought there was a general pattern to what England were trying to do.

It’s probably been the best part of a decade watching them and not always knowing how they are going to play.

The scrum in the first half was fantastic.

The line-out didn’t go well for either side and was a bit of a mess, but I thought England attacked with variety, whether it be the crossfield kicks out wide or their ability to try to break around the number 13 channel.

Try-scorer Immanuel Feyi-Waboso’s work-rate and ability to break the gain line gave England real momentum.

Ultimately, they were undone by two brilliant individual moments from New Zealand wing Mark Tele’a, which you should be able to take out of the defensive debrief.

His first try followed an unbelievable offload by Wallace Sititi, before coming up against Ellis Genge in a one-on-one situation – and there was only one person winning that battle.

Then his second try was just ridiculous – I don’t think anyone else in the world finishes that try.

Hindsight is very handy, but I was surprised with the timing of some of the changes England made, as I didn’t feel they were necessary.

They replaced the entire front row early in the second half when they were still handling themselves well.

New Zealand were behind in the scrum in the first half and you knew they were definitely going to do something about it.

The first scrum after the break, the All Blacks just had a little edge and immediately England made changes in the front row.

You probably thought they would go to another scrum and see if England could handle it, but it was immediate.

I wholeheartedly disagree, however, with the timing of the decision to replace half-backs Ben Spencer and Marcus Smith with Harry Randall and George Ford.

Spencer and Smith had managed the game really well. There were threats everywhere and they were playing a great style of rugby.

They didn’t have a lot of possession but when they did, Marcus created problems.

The game was nowhere near won. England were leading by eight points but you knew New Zealand were still going to have a say.

I just think it took the momentum out the game and the way England were organising their defence.

Nonetheless, there is not one part of me that will lay any blame with Ford for the missed drop-goal attempt in the final play.

It was an utter shambles of a drill.

From the moment that scrum went down under the posts, it seemed every single player looked at Ford for the drop-goal. Randall picked up from the middle of the scrum, when it should have been Alex Dombrandt’s ball at number eight.

Then he shipped it on and they go through the phases a bit. Everyone is looking at Ford but no-one is doing their job of trucking it up and getting into a good position.

Go back to England v Ireland in the Six Nations when it all came down to Marcus Smith’s drop-goal.

England had two penalty advantages right in front of the sticks. If Smith had topped that, they had a penalty because of the amazing work the forwards had done to create that situation.

Jonny Wilkinson was great at drop-goals but he had an England forward pack in front of him to control the narrative around the breakdown.

You could see Ford was looking at Randall and not wanting the ball because he was on the back foot and static. When he did get it, it was above his head with several All Blacks running at him.

It was a one-in-a-100 shot.

Winning is always important but I don’t think we need to talk about England’s performances any more.

We are getting used to them playing some really good rugby and we don’t need to break down how they are they are going to win games.

Their development after the World Cup has been significant.

They can build on that and I don’t see how Australia can survive physically like New Zealand did.

I don’t think they need to be flogged and analyse things to death. They are simple tweaks that will make a massive difference.

England will hopefully have some consistency in selection and they can start ironing out a few of the wrinkles.

However, if we are also looking to the future and the next World Cup as the holy grail, we have got to have half an eye on the games that will give the less experienced players a chance to own it.

Fly-half is a position which can take a lot of time for players to adjust to at Test level. Previous head coach Eddie Jones took an age to throw Marcus Smith in.

I think Ford still has huge value around the squad, but I would like to see more of Fin Smith.

Perhaps some game time against Australia at a buoyant Allianz Stadium, and after a decent performance against the All Blacks, is a good opportunity.

I don’t see wholesale changes but we need to see Fin Baxter, Alex Lozowski, Fraser Dingwall and Trevor Davison, if fit and available.

Matt Dawson was speaking to BBC Sport’s Mantej Mann.