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The mixed memories of an enchanting Paris evening cut short have swirled in English heads for 13 months. For 60 minutes of a World Cup semi-final, England had shaken the eventual double world champions off their axis; matching rugby’s superheavyweights blow for blow until the Springboks roared off the ropes.
It remains a performance to which Steve Borthwick frequently refers with pride, a gameplan conceived, adhered to and executed to the head coach’s liking. Several senior England players believe they successfully “rattled” South Africa – so much so that head coach Rassie Erasmus hooked his starting fly-half after half an hour.
But England, of course, lost at the Stade de France. By a combination of sheer scrum might and Handre Pollard’s deadeye accuracy from the tee, the champions found a way.
The challenge now for Borthwick and his side is to mix that same intoxicating potion under the significant pressure that four consecutive defeats bring, while also finding the extra edge his side lacked both then and, more pertinently, in their last four fixtures. The England head coach was as angry as at any point during his tenure after a careless, chaotic defeat to the Wallabies that left him and his side struggling to preach for patience. Show that much clear vulnerability again, and England will know what awaits them against a South African side who have become rugby’s apex predator.
“In that semi-final – and we talked about this – there were chances that we did not take in a very tight game,” Borthwick reflected. “What we’ve developed and what we’ve certainly been improving upon, is taking our chances when they’re there, for us to go on and actually being able to create more chances.
“We think we’ve developed our game a little bit from where we were in 2023. We feel there’s some more attacking opportunities within us and there’s more ball movement within us. We’re a different team than what we were then and we’re aiming to cause them some problems.”
There are hints with Borthwick’s selection of a reversion to type, a re-embracing of his roots in a kick pressure, conservative game. Chief among them is the return of Freddie Steward, left behind in England’s evolution but picked for his aerial “super strengths” this weekend.
“The team that kicks more contestable kicks than anybody in the world is South Africa,” explained his head coach, with the crackdown on escort runners only increasing Steward’s value. “What we’re seeing is a great increase in the number of kicks, increase in the number of contestable kicks, an increase in the number of scrums and increase in the number of loose balls.”
But while elements of the gameplan from last October will remain, there is a recognition of a need to move with the times and match South Africa’s own attacking expansion. Besides, the talent turnover since that semi-final is stark. Since that night in Paris, England have lost their best scrummaging loosehead in Joe Marler, their most combative and commanding flanker in Courtney Lawes, commander-in-chief Owen Farrell, wrecking ball Manu Tuilagi and best chasing wing Jonny May. With Alex Mitchell and Tom Curry, both excellent that night, absent through injury, this is a drastically different England.
Also ringing the changes are South Africa, swapping in 12 new faces after resting plenty of key figures either partly or entirely at Murrayfield last weekend. That the Springboks were so clearly off their game against Scotland and still won by 17 points only served to further display their depth, meaning their protestations at a six-day turnaround this week have rather fallen on deaf ears.
Erasmus has largely been on his best behaviour, too, having declared himself tired of his war with all ahead of the Autumn Nations Series. The Machiavellian mastermind was on reasonable form on Thursday, though, correctly predicting England’s line-up tweaks and sympathising with the under-pressure Borthwick.
“We have been on that side,” Erasmus said. “Two or three years ago we lost three on the trot when Jacques Nienaber was the coach and the next one was New Zealand. It was almost four on the trot. It depends on the men in the room, the management, depends on your chief executive – they can make you feel like you have got a gun against your head.
“You can try to create the environment and say, ‘We almost got the All Blacks, Australia last-minute try, if we didn’t slip there it could have been two wins.’ If you put pressure on coaches it is not nice and you tend to make emotional decisions. I think Steve is too smart to do that, sometimes you try to please them a bit, but I don’t think he is that kind of man. Hopefully the environment around is for him to believe in what he is doing.”
One can never doubt the courage of Erasmus’s convictions, that is for certain. Some wondered if Manie Libbok’s time in a Springboks shirt might soon be coming to an end after that high-profile semi-final substitution was followed by the emergence of Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, but yet again the playmaker finds himself with 10 on his back as Pollard once more assumes the closing role played in such devastating manner au Stade.
Libbok will be tasked with getting an exciting backline that has shown new dimensions this year, but the Springboks know they can generally fall back on their own set-piece strengths. The forward battles promise to be mighty and mean – particularly following the aftermath of Curry’s accusation about a comment from Bongi Mbonambi during the World Cup semi-final.
The South African camp have publicly sought to downplay any lingering effect of that furore but England certainly aren’t short of motivation. Curry himself, it is said, was desperate to play this week but a concussion renders him unavailable.
His teammates will rip knowing that only victory will salvage their autumn. A winning record in 2024 has already been swept off the table in this losing run and long consideration is not required to contemplate how the Twickenham crowd might react if England are played decisively off the park.
But if England do want reason for encouragement, perhaps a look back to 2012 is in order. Then, after narrow defeats to Australia and South Africa, Stuart Lancaster’s hosts stirred from their slumber to stun the all-conquering All Blacks, hitting heights they have not reached on home soil since. Against this Springboks side, something similar may be required.
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