The power of negative thinking

I'm not surprised that England lost to Australia. I am surprised that they lost as badly as they did. But what I find profoundly dispiriting is listening to the interviews with the players. Like everybody else who even breathes into a microphone nowadays they talk in the same "look on the bright side, tomorrow's another day, we need to stay positive" terms that we hear from everybody from the Home Secretary to Adie Boothroyd. Just once I'd like one of those players to say "we're absolutely crushed and humiliated, this has been the worst few months of our lives, every night we go back to our hotel and get dangerously pissed, we're deeply angry and we're never going to let it happen again."