England’s superpower is they keep finding new ways to lose rugby matches

TWICKENHAM — Rassie Erasmus was almost embarrassed to say it.

The South Africa head coach didn’t want to disrespect English rugby by saying it, but the the truth was that the Springboks had not played well, but they had still won.

“When you play at Twickenham, and you have to say, ‘we’re not happy with the performance’ and we beat them by nine points, that will be arrogant,” Erasmus said.

He settled for admitting “it wasn’t fantastic, but we are content that we could beat them today”.

You don’t have to be fantastic to beat England these days. They’ll find a way to do it for you.

Against New Zealand, it was a series of missed tackles, and two spurned three-point changes; when Australia came to town, it was a failure to regather a restart and an injudicious blitz when defending off the scrum; and this time with the Springboks, it was an utter failure to take the opportunities that were presented to them.

Specifically, there was a five-metre line-out that Luke Cowan-Dickie botched, penalised for the rarely-seen dummy throw, then an awful read by Henry Slade, sending Ollie Lawrence straight into a double-team, and finally Maro Itoje, who spun around and ran directly away from his support. Each represented a ceding of possession inside the South African half with their opponents down to 14.

On the other side of the ball, Handre Pollard was a picture of calm. Twickenham booed him when he turned down three points in the final minutes, which would have given the visitors a 32-20 lead. Instead, Pollard took his time and kicked deep into opposition territory. Time off the clock was more valuable than the lead extension, and he knew it. So did the crowd.

What unites all three of England’s defeats this autumn is a singular failure to execute key skills in the crucial moments of the match. In all three matches, they have led in the second half, and in all three they have surrendered the lead before the end. Questions have and will continue to be asked, and at present England do not have many answers.

Steve Borthwick insists the disruption to his coaching team has nothing to do with it, but the loss of key personnel over recent months is hard to ignore. Aled Walters, widely acknowledged as the leading expert in rugby strength and conditioning, was lured away by Ireland, while defence coach Felix Jones was reportedly unhappy with the “unstable working environment”. Kevin Sinfield, skills coach and a popular member of the team, has been absent from camp this week because he is on a book tour. He had not expected to still be involved with England, hence the double-parking.

If there are three areas England are really found wanting, it is fitness, defence and skills. It’s not quite ”can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field” but it isn’t far off.

Conditioning is something to which Borthwick alluded when he first started as coach, insisting it was not something he could quickly fix. Walters made significant progress ahead of the World Cup in France, but after significant turnover in the squad, England’s weighty pack look short of puff again.

Borthwick did say after the game that he was still the right man for the job, and that he was confident he would have time to keep improving England, but he is nearly two years removed from those same initial complaints and his team are starting to break records for a lack of success.

Even his famous attention to detail in preparation seemed to have failed this week: the box-kicks that were nearly charged down a week ago cost them a try this time and the disastrous restarts of the Australia game were replicated against the Springboks. At one point they hoisted George Martin, already 6ft 6in, high into the air and the ball went several feet over his head. It was hardly the only time on Saturday that someone in a white shirt was left grasping at thin air.

At least Marcus Smith is finally playing like himself in an England shirt. Harlequins fans have seen for years what he can conjure but too often for his country he has either been restrained or restricted. His teammates have struggled to keep up with him too. As his club coach and former All Blacks No 10 Nick Evans put it this week, “at Quins, he has got 50 guys who know what he is going to do and can react to what he does. At times [for England], you probably see Marcus identify things that other people do not and they are a yard behind.”

Slade and Lawrence still look a little like they are not quite sure what Smith is going to do next, but that will only get better with time, and Borthwick at last gave him that against South Africa. After consecutive 62nd-minute switches against New Zealand and Australia, Smith was at last left at fly-half for all 80 minutes.

He wasn’t perfect, but he did create yet another try from nothing, improvising brilliantly when sitting in the pocket for a drop-goal to dash over to the blindside and create Ollie Sleightholme’s score.

But away from Smith’s mastery, England lack so much in so many other areas. Erasmus is the third visiting head coach to have sat in a Twickenham post-match conference and tried to appear humble. Borthwick may have to wait some time to wipe the smile off any of their faces.