There was no missed penalty, or knocked on restart this time to direct fury at. England’s 29-20 defeat to South Africa was down to losing collisions, several errors and, fundamentally, not being as good as South Africa. It was death by a thousand cuts.
There’s no embarrassment in losing to the Boks as they are back-to-back world champions after all. But for all the talk of England looking for a response after painful defeats to New Zealand and Australia, you saw glimpses of the inner English fury and desire to right past wrongs at Twickenham, but they were second best and simply couldn’t match the precision and power of the Boks. They showed ambition in attack, but it was the same story of self-destructive mistakes inhibiting momentum.
It means England have now lost six out of their last seven matches, five on the bounce, and are in their worst run in six years. It’s not exactly what Steve Borthwick and the red rose chiefs would’ve envisaged when they came into this autumn looking for this to be proof or process rather than a brutal expose of shortcomings, errors and exasperation.
It’s been a far too familiar tale. And the reality is, a victory over Japan next weekend will not bring any gloss to this autumn.
“It is incredibly frustrating, I feel the frustration of the players,” Borthwick said. “While there is much to be proud about, we want to win games. We put ourselves in positiosn to win the games, but we don’t convert them.”
England’s precision and discipline proved to be their undoing. In the final quarter — their albatross — they tried and failed to find momentum. They had opportunity, twice kicking penalties into the Boks’ 22 with South Africa down to 14 men after Gerhard Steenekamp was sin-binned, but both came to nought.
First Luke Cowan-Dickie was whistled for a dummy lineout in the 70th minute with England poised on South Africa’s five-metre line, and three minutes later England again were deep in Boks’ territory but coughed up a penalty. It must be so frustrating for Borthwick watching this. It’s almost Sisyphean — they get so close to the top of the hill, but let something slip and have to start all over again.
In turn, the Boks did exactly what we knew they were going to do. There were few surprises. They were hard as granite up front, had a solid set piece, and then when they had time and space, they gave Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse the freedom to do what they beautifully do.
This wasn’t a vintage Springboks performance, but it was emblematic of the formidable outfit they’ve moulded.
“We’re content,” Rassie Erasmus said. Siya Kolisi was exceptional in the back-row, Pieter-Steph du Toit was immense, and despite the odd error here and there, and silly penalties, they never really looked rattled. And as England got more frantic in the final 10 minutes, the Boks looked ever calmer.
England’s four changes produced mixed results. Sam Underhill was combative at openside, and left his mark on the Boks, while Freddie Steward was solid under the high ball (as was Tommy Freeman). But Jack van Poortvliet didn’t bring anything extra to scrum-half and will have Eben Etzebeth in his nightmares — the gigantic Boks lock charging him down twice early on.
It was the fourth change that produced the goods early on as Ollie Sleightholme crossed for England after three minutes. It was a stunning move with Marcus Smith — England’s best player — faking a drop-goal, darting around Ox Nche and pinging the ball to Henry Slade, who put over Sleightholme.
Hope abound but eight minutes later the Boks responded through Grant Williams, who danced through the flailing arms of Ellis Genge and George Martin and around Steward to go under the posts. They doubled down on that with Du Toit crossing after 16 minutes, pouncing on an Etzebeth charge-down to score. They then scored their third in the 19th minute as Kolbe lapped up aManie Libbok cross-kick and danced around Steward to score.
It was looking ominous, with Kolisi splitting English players in two, but in the 25th minute Underhill went past a soft tackle from Wilco Louw to burrow over. It was two points in the Boks’ favour at the break, Twickenham expectant, hopeful, still.
Both the Boks and England had tries disallowed at the start of the second half. Arendse’s effort was ruled out for a marginal forward pass, while Henry Slade’s effort in the 49th minute was chalked off for an Itoje neckroll on Malcolm Marx.
Smith chipped England back in front from a penalty, but then came the Boks strangling the life out of the match. Handre Pollard nudged over a long-range penalty — bouncing it off the bar and over — and Damian de Allende went through England’s porous defence as Slade and Ben Earl missed him, to put Kolbe over. It was far, far too easy.
The Boks had to weather the last 10 minutes without Steenekamp, who was yellow carded, but even then, England couldn’t land a punch. The bench made little impact, and the Boks were left to continue this remarkable run under Rassie Erasmus.
“We have to recognise how good South Africa are,” Borthwick said. “You have to be on the money every second of the Test match against them.”
It leaves England with Japan on Sunday, and then just over two months to plan for the Six Nations. In that time, they need to bring order to their attack, find a way to fine-tune defence, and work on a way of maintaining intensity across 80 minutes. Far too often they’ve been guilty of their own downfall.
“We will work through this and we will make sure we will be better coming through it,” Borthwick said.
But we’ve been here before. Little errors are magnified and end up deciding matches. England are impatient to halt this losing slide, but they have to find calm and clarity when the pressure is on. Borthwick won’t lose his job anytime soon and you can feel his frustration, but until England play with complete clarity and find a way to eradicate these errors, then familiar failings will be all too frequent.