England's slow starters on collision course with South Africa's frugal finishers

Steve Borthwick’s players have recently come under scrutiny for their lack of ability to close out games.

Elements of that evaluation have been fair, but while they have lost their last four fixtures, it’s worth noting that three of those matches were against the All Blacks, a difficult team to break down even in a low ebb.

With that said, the nature of England’s defeats has warranted criticism. Their 42-37 loss to Australia over the weekend was the latest in a string of defeats that have come despite England having been ahead late in the game.

Against New Zealand over the summer, England were two points ahead with 14 minutes remaining in the first Test, and in the second Test led by four points with 20 minutes remaining. They went on to lose each of those fixtures.

Then, when the All Blacks came to Twickenham at the beginning of this month, England led by eight points with 13 minutes of that Test to go and ended up on the wrong side of the scoreboard once again.

Against Australia on Saturday they were leading with 40 seconds on the clock and just needed to secure the upcoming restart and recycle the ball a few times before kicking it out. They failed to do so and Australia went on to win.

But while England are struggling to finish off games, the breadth of their fixtures this year suggest that the bigger problem they have is consistently leaving themselves too much to do in the second half.

In the ten Tests they’ve played so far this year, they have only led at half-time on two occasions - in the first Test against New Zealand and in a 52-17 victory over Japan the week before.

They were losing at half-time in each of their five fixtures of this year’s Six Nations. In three of those, against Italy, Wales and Ireland, they would go on to win, and against France they were beaten by a Thomas Ramos penalty in the 80th minute.

That shows that they are capable of fighting back and winning close games, which in itself is a positive, but this weekend they face a different beast in the form of back-to-back world champions South Africa.

Like England, the Springboks have played ten Tests so far this year. In their latest, against Scotland at Murrayfield over the weekend, Rassie Erasmus deployed his eternally polarising ‘Bomb Squad’ as six starting forwards were replaced within the first six minutes of the second half.

The so-called Bomb Squad is a topic of heated debate in rugby circles the world over, but its impact is not.

With such depth to call upon, and the injection its collective introduction provides, South Africa have never been outscored in the second half of a Test match in 2024.

In fact, on only three occasions - Ireland and Portugal in July, and New Zealand at Ellis Park in the Rugby Championship - has a team managed to notch double figures in the second half of a game against the Springboks this year.

That fact alone does not make the Boks unbeatable. Ireland beat Erasmus’ charges in the second Test of a two-match series and Argentina beat them during the Rugby Championship.

But it means England cannot afford a slow start if they are to beat the Springboks for the first time since 2021.

Erasmus’ sides pride themselves on conceding very little as the game progresses. They back themselves to weather the early storm and then squeeze out their opponents.

A lot was made of them winning each of their three knockout games at last year's World Cup by a single point, but the more impressive feat was only allowing France to score six points in the second half of the quarter-final and allowing only three from England in the second half of the semi-final.

England are capable of beating the Springboks. The two teams that will line up for the anthems this weekend will be largely similar to the ones that did so when Marcus Smith handed England a 27-26 victory in 2021.

But if England are to take anything from that game, before they point to the nerve required for Smith's last-gasp penalty, they should heed the 14-3 lead they amassed after the first 20 minutes.

So while Borthwick's side can snap their losing streak this weekend, if they aren’t in the ascendancy by the time the Boks’ replacement forwards start to peel off their tracksuits at the beginning of the second half, their chances of victory will be slim indeed.