Steve Borthwick © Gallo Images

Perhaps someone in the England squad should remind head coach Steve Borthwick that last year’s Rugby World Cup semi-final in Paris was played in wet and harsh conditions.

If there is talk in the England media about bringing back the tall, safe player at full-back but the bulky Freddy Steward at full-back and other changes that could be made to the team narrowly defeated by New Zealand and Australia in the first two autumn internationals, it is the England camp itself. Of course it could just be speculation, that’s a different thing.

Either way, if England want to play mind games with the Springboks when they face them at Twickenham (Allianz Stadium) on Saturday, there is the possibility of turning back the clock and reverting to the template that almost worked against the team and the RWC winners. That’s a good way to go about it.

Because when it was announced on Thursday that Steward would return to the team as a full-back, leaving George Ford at fly-half and possibly Jack van Poorvliet at scrum-half, it would mark a dramatic change from what England have done so far this autumn. In fact, this would be a change from what they have been working on since the global tournament ended in the last week of last October.

Of course, Owen Farrell, who captained England in the World Cup, was left out of this squad. He retired from international rugby immediately after the tournament and now plays rugby for his own club in France. This partly explains why Marcus Smith has played so much at Flyhalf since then. But this is also because England made a shift in the early stages of the last Six Nations and began to place greater emphasis on evolving from a conservative, security-first strategy towards a more offensive template.

PERFORMANCES CONTRAST WITH RESULTS SUGGEST IMPROVEMENT

If you just look at the results, you’ll see that it doesn’t work. But if you look at the close margins of defeat against New Zealand in New Zealand, there have been losses of less than a score in both games played so far in November, also factored in England beating Ireland and then being beaten by France. Progress was being made as they recovered from defeat to Scotland in the Six Nations.

For all the talk of the impact of changes in the law regarding escort runners for catchers in contested innings on the way the game is played, what might have inspired England to return to the more conservative template reflected above? Said team changes are memory. Remembering that England looked like they were going to beat the Boks for 65 minutes of the semi-final last year, nobody gave them a chance.

By getting ahead of the Boks physically and playing a good tactical kicking game where Steward was very good in the air, they made their opponents look pretty ordinary. In fact, this was Bok’s worst performance of the World Cup, falling short of their only defeat in the Pool match against Ireland.

GUYS, WE MADE TACTICAL MISTAKES FOR THE LAST TIME

The trick was that the game was played in conditions that were definitely in favor of England’s strategy. And Boks may have made a mistake in his preparations; The week before, they had managed to stay in the game against an excellent French team by matching first-half tries in a thrilling and memorable quarter-final, with Manie Libbok scoring a first-half decider.

The Boks were successful thanks to their ability to counter and attack with the through ball, and Libbok’s 10th place finish showed that they wanted to do the same in the semi-finals. In the early stages, they stuck to the original plan, with the Boks rushing things and thus making mistakes against the singularly focused England.

It was the Boks’ release from prison, the coaches pulling Libbok off the field early, and the strength and attacking technique in replacing the stray prop that turned the momentum very comprehensively in South Africa’s favor at this stage in the final quarter.

Would the Boks be in this hole if the game had been played on a clear night instead of a cloudy and wet night? If England puts forward a repeat of the strategy it used in Paris, we may find out at the weekend, as the forecast for London on Saturday is cloudy but no rain. Also, there is no rain in the structure.

So the Boks need to run on a dry pitch and that could mean any plans to copy England’s semi-final strategy from last year could backfire horribly. The law banning escort runners for kickers would be one of the main reasons why England are considering this strategy. Steward announced as a full-back in England’s narrow win against the Boks at Twickenham in 2021, still in the Eddie Jones era. Boks bombarded him non-stop in this match. He is also good at recovering the ball in aerial combat in attacking situations.

HOST’S DEFENSE PROBLEM REDUCES AGAINST LOW SCORE MATCH

Ford is also a more kicking-focused scrum-half than Smith, and if a box-kicking extravaganza is the plan due to the change in law announced just a few weeks ago, the limitations on Ford’s attacking play won’t matter as much.

But the problem is that Steward’s lack of pace has become apparent, most notably when France edged England by 50 points 18 months ago. Given that there is some dysfunction in the England defensive system following the departure of former Bok assistant coach Felix Jones, who implemented the Bok blitz system, a dry game could mean England have to score too many points and not rely on a scoreline. It was a low scoring match like the RWC semi-final.

With Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse likely to return, and possibly Aphelele Fassi as well, the Boks will be ready for a devastating counter-attack should England overdo it in the contested innings and fail to get 100 per cent on target.

The Boks will also only announce their teams on Thursday, so we will have to wait until then to see what their strategy will be. But given how weak the England defense was against Australia and how good the Boks were in attack with Libbok at number 10 in the full-strength team’s last game against Argentina, it may well be that the Stormers started at center with Handre Pollard backed up we could see. .

If it is a dry day, it could give Libbok a chance to reverse what went wrong last October and the Boks could capitalize on England’s perception that the way to beat the world champion is to turn the game into arm wrestling.