England were shell-shocked. Never mind the gap, onlookers were marvelling at the sheer chasm in class between the two teams.<\/p>\n
And this was a Springbok side that many had expected to start slowly.<\/p>\n
South Africa’s last meaningful match was in November.<\/p>\n
They have a lengthy injury list, with the late withdrawal of captain Siya Kolisi and second row Eben Etzebeth adding to the absence of star fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and forward mainstays Franco Mostert, Lood de Jager, RG Snyman, Kwagga Smith and Frans Malherbe.<\/p>\n
The Springboks didn’t even get a chance to press their traditional scrum supremacy until the 21st minute.<\/p>\n
But none of it mattered. South Africa were too skilful individually, too connected as a collective for England to make an imprint.<\/p>\n
Ellis Genge and George Martin’s try-scoring rumbles, which cut the Boks’ lead to three at half-time, raised false hopes of an England comeback before the break<\/p>\n
The Boks duly restored rugby’s new world order after the break.<\/p>\n
“The second half was hardly a contest,” said former England fly-half Paul Grayson on BBC Radio 5 Live.<\/p>\n
“England never got a foothold in the game and because of that their attack was bits and pieces.<\/p>\n
“South Africa smashed the door down, rarely played more than a couple of phases but squeezed the life out of England. They were uncomplicated and uncompromising.”<\/p>\n
Perhaps no side could have matched the double reigning world champions in such brilliantly belligerent mood.<\/p>\n
But plenty will feel that England should have been closer to doing so.<\/p>\n
Opting for Marcus Smith, an excellent and versatile player, but not a specialist full-back, at 15 after the late withdrawal of George Furbank did not settle the backfield defence.<\/p>\n
Tommy Freeman, one of England’s best players in the air, remained in his less accustomed outside centre role.<\/p>\n
Too often the Boks took to the air and returned with the ball, with the superb Damian Willemse ruling the skies.<\/p>\n
England had promised to play ‘big’, mixing physical bravery with tactical daring. It was there, but only in parts.<\/p>\n
All three England tries – concluding with Henry Slade’s excellent kamikaze angle into the heart of the Bok defence followed up by a smart mispass to Coles to cross for their final score – showed that intent.<\/p>\n
And one early passage of play, with Fin Smith and Ben Earl combining well and Jack van Poortvliet finding his man with a one-handed offload round the back of a tackler, saw them carve through the hosts.<\/p>\n
But the attacking ambition and accuracy wavered across the contest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England were shell-shocked. Never mind the gap, onlookers were marvelling at the sheer chasm in class between the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-677763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}