How ‘New England’ won final quarter to show their steel

England 27-26 South Africa

60 min: England 17-15 S Africa Bending, not breaking – Malins holds up Smith

The Springboks are looking menacingly ominous. They absorbed England’s best shots in the first half, including two brilliantly worked tries for Manu Tuilagi and Freddie Steward, but like the villain in a horror film, they shrug off those seemingly fatal blows. The introduction of the “bomb squad” has detonated England’s set-piece and maul defence. Yet they are still trailing.

England’s defence is scrambling and no one is scrambling harder than Max Malins.

Moments earlier, he pulls off an effective triple tackle on Malcolm Marx, Cobus Reinach and Kwagga Smith, who knocks on. Then, after a maul is brought down inches short of the line, he again frustrates Smith by getting his body under the ball to hold up the Springbok flanker.

Add in his role in the Steward try and Eddie Jones has no doubt in labelling this Malins’ best game for England. “He has got great pace, he has got a good feel for the game and defensively he is improving all the time,” said Jones, who was keen to emphasise the greatest credit has to go to Anthony Seibold. The new defence coach has installed a ravenous approach among the players towards guarding their goal-line.

65min: England 24-18 S Africa Gleeson-inspired running lines – Quirke try

England remain under the cosh. South Africa now have the lead and the momentum of a boulder rolling down a mountain. Enter a Martin Gleeson party piece. England have a line-out just inside their own half. Courtney Lawes wins quick ball off the top, feeding it down to Raffi Quirke, who throws a long mispass to Henry Slade. If you look at the overhead angles, the position of the England backs are almost identical to the strike move that led to Steward’s first-half try.

As a result, outside centre Lukhanyo Am starts to drift wide, which opens a space for Joe Marchant to latch on to Slade’s no-look pass. Quirke runs the perfect support line to send Twickenham into raptures.

Afterwards Jones says this try had

Gleeson’s fingerprints all over it. “We’ve been working on some running lines against a rush defence and Marchant ran a beautiful line that allowed him to get into the gap,” Jones said. “That’s the quality of Martin’s coaching. It was absolutely outstanding. This has been the focus of our autumn campaign and we didn’t want to attack the way they wanted us to attack. We either wanted to attack really tight or we wanted to attack fairly wide, where they’re not usually attacked.”

73min: England 24-26 S Africa Keeping their heads – Mapimpi try and Steyn penalty

The Springbok boulder is still bounding down the hill. Will Stuart is sin-binned and the dam eventually cracks in defence as Makazole Mapimpi scores in the corner. Frans Steyn gives the Springboks the lead again after England concede the 10th penalty of the second half.

Probably the single biggest failing of Jones’s reign has been reacting to setbacks. Here they were without regular captain Owen Farrell and match-day captain Courtney Lawes for the final seven minutes, but they

embrace adversity. “We said ‘ride the wave, boys, stick in it’ and I thought we were brilliant,” fly-half Marcus Smith said. “We knew they would come back swinging with their bench and they really did that. That really shocked us. Massive credit goes to the leaders.”

It is also worth pointing out that of the XV that finished the game, eight had fewer than 10 caps. “I was really pleased for a lot of the youngsters who dug deep and showed grit to stay in the fight, rather than just giving up,” prop Joe Marler said. “It would have been easy to go ‘oh, this lot are pretty good’. Instead, I looked around the group but the young boys just puffed out their chests and said, ‘Let’s give this a crack, we’re still in this’.”

75min: England 24-26 S Africa

Given freedom to play – Kolisi yellow card

It is one thing to select Marcus Smith, it is another to let him play like Marcus Smith. The high-risk, high-reward approach of the Harlequins playmaker seems to run counter to how Jones has allowed England to play since the 2019

World Cup. Trailing the world champions in the final Test was the litmus test of the philosophy of Jones’s “New England” project.

England secure scrappy line-out ball, Marler carries hard and then Quirke fires another long pass to Smith, who chips inside his own half for Marchant to chase. Springbok captain Siya Kolisi upends him in the air, resulting in a yellow card. The high risk yielded a high reward.

“Massive credit goes to the leaders in our squad,” Smith said. “They put their arm round me and allowed me to keep expressing myself. We had to have the courage to keep playing because not many teams beat South Africa if you play them at their game. The coaches gave us the licence to be courageous and have a go. It made my job easy: just do your job and the rest will happen.”

79min: England 27-26 S Africa

Holding his nerve – Smith penalty England maintain their adventurous spirit. Referee Andrew Brace awards a penalty for a breakdown infringement and then another, far closer to the goal when Steyn punishes Smith’s dancing feet with a knee in the back. Dead straight and 30 metres out, this is the type of kick that Smith should be able to make in his sleep.

Yet context is everything. In front of an 82,000 crowd and with a 2min 30sec delay, even the steadiest of hands can start to shake.

“It’s probably the highest-pressure moment I’ve ever been in, with this delay of it as well,” Smith said. “I think the referee was checking things, so I had a lot of time to think about it, but the leaders in the team put their arm around me and said we believe in you.”

Even if Smith technically did his job by converting the penalty, he did not take up his full allocation of time, allowing South Africa a few moments to potentially mount one final comeback.

“Maro [Itoje] said, ‘Take the whole minute,’ and I didn’t do that,” Smith said. “Sorry, Maro. I was just collecting my thoughts. It was one of those kicks that... I used my breathing techniques, which calmed me down, focused on what I could control. I was very grateful that I sent that over. It was a reward for the forwards.”