England suffer fifth straight loss as familiar flaws return against Boks

England aren’t competitive and it’s time for Borthwick to go. The RFU cannot persist with him any longer and must act. England are so far off it that they have no chance at the RWC so there’s nothing to lose by acting now

Whilst this was always going to be a massive test i felt that if we lost whilst firing some shots and showing that the performance / tactics had moved on from those of the 6N indicating progress i would not have minded that outcome.

But it appears nothing was learned and nothing changed, we looked like rabbits in the headlights for the first twenty, disjointed and out of synch, yes we did well to pull it back for a three point margin at half time but the caveat to this is SA had a winger in the bin for ten mins, but the second half we were blown away.

Poor kick chase (again as in the 6N), poor discipline and a leaky defence, add to this players out of position and a rigid, turgid game plan.

I cannot fault the effort of the players but the coaches are just not producing the goods, comparing the rugby played in the earlier games today the style imposed by SB & Co appears out of date and alien to the players, who for their clubs can play fast heads up rugby looking for space but appear to be constrained by the tactics.

I am not disappointed by the loss just the manner of it.

Formidable from the boks and largely not having to move out of second gear. Not rattled by the late changes and disruption.

Walked through England in the first quarter which was enough to lay down a game winning marker.

Far too often England are getting 40 PTS put on them.

That was possibly one of the worst England performances in recent years.