England coach Steve Borthwick said that the yet another painful defeat, this time 29-20 to South Africa on Saturday to continue their miserable Autumn series, will help his team in the long run as they continue their development.
Yet again England played well in parts and, for sixth successive game against Tier One opposition, they led late on, only to lose.
Admittedly on Saturday that 22-19 lead after 52 minutes was a brief flicker as Marcus Smith’s penalty was their only score in the final 53 minutes after an all-action first half had South Africa 19-17 ahead. A second try for the brilliant Cheslin Kolbe just after the hour put the nail in the coffin.
“I think this adversity will be good for the team. These are challenging days, the development days for us, it’s painful,” Borthwick said after England lost three in a row at home for the first time since 2006 to leave their 2024 record as a paltry four wins from 11 games.
“We are playing against very, very good teams and you have to credit them. In that last part today we had plenty of opportunities, plenty of entries, but small lapses end up being hugely significant.
Borthwick stuck to his theme that his developmental team is doing well to push the established giants of the sport, even though last week’s defeat came against an Australia side who had lost five of their six Rugby Championship games.
“We had a number of players finish after the World Cup and this last year has been one of transitioning a lot of young players into this England team, which I think have an incredibly exciting future,” he said
“It’s also transitioning the way we’re trying to play.
You can see when the team moves the ball, you see just the talent that we have and the pace that we have.”
England did play with a lot more ball-in-hand ambition than in the tense, kick-dominated World Cup semi-final defeat to the Springboks last year and scored two excellent tries through Ollie Sleightholme and Sam Underhill.
Henry Slade then crossed for a third that would have put them ahead 10 minutes into the second half, only for it to be ruled out for foul play by Maro Itoje.
That proved to be as close as they came to piercing the Springbok defence again as their early creativity dried up, despite their rivals losing a man to the sin-bin in the 68th minute.
“We will have a good discussion with the players as to why, in the second half, we didn’t shift the ball, when they were a player down,” Borthwick said. “We will make sure the players have the confidence to shift that ball.
“I think we created a lot of opportunities against a world-class team and back-to-back world champions.
“I think what’s important is that the core of the game has put us in a position to be ahead on the scoreboard against very, very good opposition. We will improve to ensure that we do finish off those games.”
England finish their year against Japan next Sunday when anything but a hefty win would leave Borthwick under huge pressure.
The former lock and captain said that he was not going to talk about any private conversations he might have had with his employers but added: “What’s actually more important is the feeling I get from the RFU is one of absolute support and absolute belief that this team is going in the right direction.”
Reuters
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