INTERNATIONAL WRAP: England’s imitation should be flattering to Boks

They say there’s nothing more flattering than imitation, so for Rassie Erasmus and his Springboks, they should feel the flush of pride that comes with confirmation that you’re leading the way and others are following when they watch England’s progress in the Quilter Autumn Nations Series.

A few hours after the Boks had once again been forced to rely on 14 men in overcoming refereeing ineptitude and a fired-up Italy in Turin, they would have followed England’s rousing win over the All Blacks at Twickenham, which confirms them as an emerging challenger for the World Cup trophy that has resided in South Africa for the past six years.

Whether England will be able to make up the gap that even their coach Steve Borthwick acknowledges the Boks have opened up at the top, for he apparently sounded quite awestruck when at the post-match press conference at Twickenham he referenced the world champs as “quite a team”, we will know when the next RWC arrives in Australia in 2027.

We will get a good idea of their progress next July, when the Nations Series that will be ushered in by a governing body in World Rugby that seems out of touch on so many levels with what the sport really needs, and which was highlighted again by the spate of cards at the weekend, begins. We don’t know at which venue the game will be played, but the Boks will be hosting a game against England.

NEW ZEALAND HAVEN’T PROGRESSED UNDER ROBERTSON

On the evidence of England’s convincing win in London that could prove to be a bigger challenge for the Boks than the three game Greatest Rivalry series that follows against the All Blacks in August. For the New Zealand fade in the second half of that game confirmed something that many people felt was coming - that the Kiwis are making little progress under the coaching of Scott Robertson and may even have regressed since the 2023 World Cup.

England by contrast after a slow start under Steve Borthwick are starting to gain momentum, and after shaking off a sequence of narrow losses, three of which were against the All Blacks, they have now won 10 games in a row.

The winning habit is starting to form for England just like it is for the Boks, who are now on six wins in a row since they started the roll with their record 43-10 win over the All Blacks in Wellington but who have played tougher opponents in the last year than England have and have now cemented their No 1 spot on the World Rugby rankings.

Given that it was from England that so much of the anathema to some aspects of the Bok ascendancy was sourced, such as towards the Bomb Squad bench split that destroyed England in the 2019 World Cup final in Yokohama, there’s a lot of irony in what England are doing now.

ENGLAND ARE GOOD AT SHIFTING GEARS

They have a Bomb Squad split, dubbed ‘Pom Squad’ by the English media, and like the Boks they have the ability to shift gears during a game. Indeed, they are second behind the Boks when it comes to the number of points scored in the last quarter this year, and even though they were down to 14 men for much of that period in the most recent game because of the yellow card to Ben Earl, there was an inevitability to their late game dominance.

But England’s willingness to ape South Africa goes further than just Borthwick’s selection and bench make-up, it also extends to the narrative that is being spun around their growing momentum. It was encapsulated by their skipper Maro Itoje placing an emphasis on the role played “by all 33 players in the squad” in his post-match interview.

Does that sound familiar? If you have been following what Erasmus and Bok skipper Siya Kolisi have been saying for the past few years, it should. Although in the Bok case the depth is so deep, and it needs to be because of the 12 month season in this country plus what some might think of as the eagerness of World Rugby’s referees to de-power them, that they sometimes talk about a 45-man squad.

And that’s the thing - imitation sometimes lags behind the evolution of what you are copying, and as it turns out, circumstances are helping the Boks fast-track the adaptability that keeps them ahead of the curve. Borthwick has hinted at following the Bok ‘hybrid’ example set by Andre Esterhuizen, with loose-forward Henry Pollock mentioned as a possible wing and Earl as a centre.

But if that does happen the Boks will be a year ahead of them on the curve, and going down to 14 for significant parts of their last two games has subjected the hybrid idea to a significant test that has been passed with flying colours. And by the time the likes of England are where the Boks are now, they will probably be bringing in a further shift to the dynamic that will be confounding opponents.

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE ARGENTINA

The talk in the England media since the All Black game is about rotating the flyhalves even though George Ford was the man of the match against the Kiwis. Again, doesn’t that sound familiar? But they need to be careful of that, for underestimating Argentina in their remaining Autumn series game could rebound on them.

The Pumas were poor in the first 50 minutes against Scotland in Edinburgh in the last game of the international weekend but it was clear from their squad selection that they are targeting the England game. They don’t just have quite the same depth as the Boks, which was why they fell behind 21-0.

But when the likes of Pablo Matera came on they did what the Boks do regularly and England have started to do - they shifted a gear. If was 33-3 to the Pumas in the last half an hour of the Murrayfield game and if there’d been another 10 minutes to play they might have scored 50. That’s how dominant they were.

Another team aping the Boks? Perhaps, and we shouldn’t forget how they came back against the eventual Rugby Championship winners in the deciding game at Twickenham at the beginning of October. They are definitely a team England should be taken seriously as although they won a series against Argentina in Argentina in July, the Pumas weren’t at full strength then and only started to hit their straps after a poor opening Championship game against New Zealand.

There’s not much separating the All Blacks from Argentina right now, if anything, and the Scots discovered that they were up a force as formidable as their previous week’s opponents but lacked the emotion they packed into their gutsy comeback in that game.

IRELAND LOOK READY FOR CLASH WITH WORLD CHAMPS

Talking of comebacks, Ireland are staging a comeback after a poor start to their autumn campaign, when they lost to the All Blacks in Chicago, and the way they finished against Australia in Dublin this past Saturday night will have been a timely reminder that there is still one big obstacle for the Boks to overcome on their tour.

Forget about Wales, and it is really questionable why that outside of the international window game on 29 November is even happening, but Ireland at the AVIVA Stadium will be fired up and, as they showed against the Wallabies, they have their attacking shape back.

The result of the Dublin game though, although it will give the Irish a boost and dupe many into thinking that the gap between the Boks and the rest isn’t as big as it actually is, won’t make a difference to the world rankings. This past weekend took care of that and the Bok win in Turin with a team featuring 11 changes and then reduced to 14 playing against a decent and fired up Italy team underlined their pedigree once more. The rest of the world is right to be following them…

WEEKEND AUTUMN QUILTER SERIES RESULTS

Italy 14 South Africa 32

England 33 New Zealand 19

Wales 24 Japan 23

France 34 Fiji 21

Ireland 46 Australia 19

Scotland 24 Argentina 33