Boks punish England, but All Blacks are taken to wire

ENGLAND were made to pay for a number of sloppy errors as South Africa adapted to soggy conditions at Twickenham to continue their 12-game unbeaten streak over Stuart Lancaster’s men yesterday. England trailed 13-6 at half-time after Jan Serfontein intercepted Danny Care’s pass for an early try and Cobus Reinach extended South Africa’s lead with another score shortly after the restart. Although captain Chris Robshaw (below) saw his pack muscle England back into the contest with tries from David Wilson and Ben Morgan off the back of driving mauls, the Springboks kept them at arm’s length with a touchdown from Schalk Burger before Brad Barritt closed the gap in the dying moments. ‘Having gone down 20-6, I thought the momentum we generated back in the game before we made any substitutions was a positive,’ said England coach Lancaster. ‘The frustration was giving points away when they didn’t have to work hard to earn them. At international level every point matters and to give those points away early in the second half put us under some pressure.’ Lancaster added: ‘We need to improve. We need to be smarter if we’re going to beat the top sides in the world as has been shown in the last two games.’ In Edinburgh, Scotland almost pulled off the shock result of 2015 as they trailed New Zealand by just one point in the final 10 minutes. Scotland winger Tommy Seymour and All Black flanker Victor Vito traded tries in the first 15 minutes but it was the hosts’ scrum-half Greig Laidlaw who kept his team within touching distance. Laidlaw converted Seymour’s try and added three penalties which left the score at 16-17 in favour of New Zealand in the closing minutes, however, Jeremy Thrush crashed over to ensure the All Blacks escaped embarrassment. Afterwards Laidlaw was content to take the positives from the Scottish performance in the 24-16 defeat. ‘I thought we played some fantastic rugby at times, but all said and done we’re clearly disappointed,’ said Laidlaw. ‘We’ve got to look at the positives and take them away from this game. We had a good win over Argentina last week and we put up a solid performance tonight, we just came up short. ‘Hopefully the fans are proud of us. The boys gave 100 per cent, put their bodies on the line, and as I said we’re just disappointed we came up a little bit short.’ Meanwhile, Wales made hard work of their Test against a 14-man Fiji side at the Millennium Stadium, winning by four points (17-13). Fiji’s Campese Ma’afu was yellow carded in the first half and then sent off just six minutes after returning from the sin bin, but his side refused to fold. Three first-half tries from George North, Alex Cuthbert and a penalty try gave the Welsh plenty of momentum but Nadolo Nasiganiyavi kept Fiji in touch through the boot before adding a five-pointer of his own right at the death. ‘We probably weren’t clinical enough behind, and we had too many turnovers that allowed them to stay in the game. It was a bit of a dogfight’ said Wales coach Warren Gatland.