Brave Boks go down fighting
SA came to play rugby — and England to do anything but
England 12 (6) South Africa 11 (8)
Scorers: England — Penalties: Owen Farrell (3), Elliot Daly.
South Africa — Try: Sibusiso Nkosi. Penalties: Handré Pollard (2).
● SA came to this storied stadium on a crisp, clear autumn afternoon to play rugby. England, no doubt pissed off that the sun was out and the field firm, came to do anything but, particularly in the first half. England won. Discuss.
Why 80,369 people would pay to put up with 40 minutes of scarcely watchable drivel from the team most of them supported yesterday is a mystery. They should claim half their money back.
But maybe England and Twickenham deserve each other: only the most graceless crowds cheer heartily when the opposition lose the ball forward.
The home side were a miserable facsimile of what a rugby team should be in the first half, trolls skulking under a bridge waiting for better beings to present themselves for the taking.
And present themselves the Springboks did, bungling two lineouts on England’s 5m line, squandering a tighthead and knocking on when they could afford it least.
The first two scrums were, in the words of referee Angus Gardner, “almost perfect”. The rest, in the words of Bill Nighy in Love Actually describing Britney Spears’s performance in a fictional night of passion, were “rubbish”.
England lock Maro Itoje was binned inside a first quarter that ended with hooker Dylan Hartley crouched on the touchline blinking into a make-up mirror while a tracksuit searched the confines of his left eye socket for a misplaced contact lens. And with Owen Farrell banging over a penalty to square things at 3-3.
But, seven minutes before the interval, after the Boks responded in kind after being monstered in a scrum, Sibusiso Nkosi put mind to muscle and scrambled over near the righthand touchline for the first try.Pollard’s conversion sailed wide and Farrell narrowed the gap to two points with another penalty, and with two minutes left in the half.
Then, in the second half, came Australia or Japan or any of the other teams Eddie Jones has coached. They couldn’t be plodding, plotless England, could they? They could and they were, and suddenly they were running at the Boks like the cavalry itself.
White wave after white wave crashed into the defending South Africans, who met their opponents’ persistence with patience and kept them out.
Even so, England hit the front by a single point in the 51st minute when fullback Elliot Daly nailed a penalty from a metre inside SA’s half.
Eleven minutes later Farrell hit the upright below the crossbar with another long-range effort, and Pollard reclaimed the lead with his second penalty in the 68th minute.
It was going to need something ugly to decide the issue, and Thomas du Toit being collared for collapsing a scrum in the 72nd minute seemed to be exactly that. Farrell goaled from near the left-hand touchline to put England 12-11 up.
But that wasn’t it. Was it Pollard’s head in his hands and blood leaking out of his right eye after shaving the upright with a lengthy penalty and three minutes on the clock?
No. It was Farrell’s shocking hit on André Esterhuizen, with shoulder smashing into jaw and precious little evidence of arms in the tackle.
Somehow Gardner and his colleagues ruled it clean. Somehow England had won. Somehow the Boks had lost.
Somehow they will have to make sense of all that and pick themselves up to take on France in Paris on Saturday.