"That's not good enough."

In public at least though, it was aimed at himself, rather than England as a whole.

The captain had been asked about the moment deep in the second half, with his team 17-11 adrift, when he had lined up a straightforward penalty.

With the shot clock ticking down on the big screen, Bernard Foley's costly dawdling against the All Blacks knocking around somewhere in his memory, and the impetus entirely on England to get on with play, inexplicably Farrell was timed out.

"I was unaware of the clock. I obviously got lost a little," he said.

It summed up an England performance that threatened to be a sleepwalk into a nightmare.

The afternoon had begun brightly.

Manu Tuilagi burned with, what the kids call, 'main character energy'. His first encounter with the country of his birth, the one represented by his five eldest brothers, had been the primary point of pre-match interest.

And the narrative remained wrapped round him.

As the Samoan anthem played, he stood to attention, his eyes fixed somewhere up around the stadium rafters. When God Save the King played, he belted it out with gusto. And, when the match started, he was everywhere.

England's first hit-up was his. Their first try, scored by Ollie Chessum, was laid on by his hand. He punched holes in attack and, on the other side of the ball, levelled Lima Sopoaga with a walloping tackle.

The 10-12-13 combination of George Ford, Farrell and Tuilagi, which was the basis of the run to the final at Japan 2019 and was last seen in a staring line-up back in March 2020, seemed to be purring like old.

Up front, England's set-piece was dominant, with the Samoan scrum going back and England's rolling maul marching forward.

Whether it was an English lapse of concentration, a flicker of fight catching alight under Samoa, or a combination of both though, Steve Borthwick's best-laid plans went awry.

Off-loads stuck, England could not stem Samoa's angles and Nigel Ah Wong scored two quick tries for the underdogs to set old gremlins in flight.

Mistakes piled up, England's attacking clarity was clouded and the spectre of another unwanted landmark, after Fiji's Twickenham success in August, loomed.

Tuilagi's afternoon ended with him limping out of the fray with an as-yet-undiagnosed knock and England spun the backline reels once again.

George Ford, seemingly secure as England's first-choice fly-half, was hooked. Farrell shuffled inside to 10. Ollie Lawrence came into midfield. Freddie Steward, a specialist full-back, was on one wing. Joe Marchant, a specialist centre, was on the other. Marcus Smith, until a fortnight ago a fly-half, was at full-back.

For a team who live by four-year cycles and Rugby World Cup benchmarks, building backlines on the hoof in the shadow of the knockout rounds is a failure.

To be fair to Borthwick, it probably is not his.

He is coming into the tournament off a short run-up after England flatlined under his predecessor Eddie Jones and the Rugby Football Union prevaricated over P45s.

In that time, suspensions and injuries have limited the hand he has had to play with.

"We are trying to expedite things very fast," Borthwick said afterwards.

"We have combinations we want to play and work together. For obvious reasons, some of those we haven't been able to run very much."

His predicament and his team's performance produced some strange post-match contortions.

"We didn't want to play the way that got us into that tough circumstance, but this team found a way out of it," said Borthwick.

"What you are seeing now is a team that finds a way through games and navigates through situations."

The best teams tend to pose the opposition problems though, rather than create their own.

Borthwick cited England's 2003 Rugby World Cup winners getting out of similar holes. But their close shaves against Samoa and Wales, won by 13 and 11 points respectively, never teetered on the razor's edge so long and perilously.

"Had we won by 20 or 30 points would that have been a great thing?" asked match-winner Danny Care.

"I'm not sure."

As Ireland leapt out into a sizeable lead over Scotland over in Paris at the same time as he spoke, England fans might have wondered if it was worth finding out.

Fiji, in all probability, are next.

And, if England are to survive that test, they know Farrell's moment of self-reflection is the final word.