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Last-gasp Smith penalty wins it for England

rugby20 November 2021 18:13| © SuperSport
By:Gavin Rich
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A last-minute penalty from England flyhalf Marcus Smith edged his team to a dramatic 27-26 win over the world champion Springboks at the end of an action packed and pulsating 80 minutes at Twickenham on Saturday to gain some measure of revenge for their humiliating defeat in the 2019 World Cup final.

It was a day where the pre-match words of England coach Eddie Jones, where he stressed in a television interview that sometimes "a strength can prove a weakness", proved eerily prophetic.

England won the match because they took advantage of a period when the Bok scrum wasn't as accurate as it normally is, where the lineout creaked more than it normally does, and where there were defensive errors that aren't usually seen from a team as immaculate defensively as the Boks normally are.

But that was mostly in the first half. The Boks will be kicking themselves for failing to take proper control on the scoreboard when they came back from their poor first-half performance to completely dominate England in the second.

After being down 17-6 at one stage of the first half and before that 14-3, the Boks spent much of the game playing catch up.

Given how well England played in the first half, and how some of the usual Bok strengths misfired, the Boks would have felt they’d done well to be just five points behind as England went to the break 17-12 ahead.

It was a movie though we'd seen a couple of times during the course of the season, and when the Boks started the second half it looked like a repeat of so many of their games, including the two in the British and Lions series that they won.

In the third quarter they quickly applied the momentum shift at forward.

However, Handre Pollard, who had been immaculate with his place-kicking performance up that point, missed two penalties that they were left to lament afterwards.

DIDN'T TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF DOMINANCE

They also failed to take full advantage of their territorial and forward dominance in a second half where a scrum that misfired a bit in the first half took complete control and forced penalties almost every time a scrum was set.

There were little moments, such as an heroic England effort in holding the Boks up over the line, a pass that didn’t go to hand after skipper Siya Kolisi surged through, and then another when Eben Etzebeth was in space in front of the Bok posts near the end and the Boks could have put the result beyond doubt, that just went against the Boks.

Not to mention the much bigger moment when Kolisi was penalised and yellow carded for playing a man in the air with just five minutes to go.

It was a marginal call but one that benefited England, who themselves had a man off after repeated earlier infringements but who were then able to end the game with 15 men against 14.

Looking at the match as a whole, the Boks did conspire against themselves. They paid for not being as accurate as they normally are at scrum time in the first quarter of the game.

The lineout also didn’t function as effectively as it usually does in that first half, and those two things combined worked against the Boks, and Jones’s words would have applied to the defensive lapses too.

This was not a day where the Bok defence was a strength with all three England tries being scored too easily and coming off attacks from set phase ball.

QUIRKE'S TRY WAS A KILLER

The Boks looked flat at the start and England enjoyed the ascendancy in the early minutes as Manu Tuilagi was sent in for the first try after just six minutes following an attacking lineout with England profiting from their patience and the width of their attack.

The second try that was scored by man of the match Freddie Steward was also an exploitation of lax Bok defending as a skip pass set England into space, while the real killer was the one that came in the 64th minute.

The Boks had just taken the lead for the first time through an Elton Jantjies penalty and with England hardly having had their hands on the ball up to that stage of the second half, it really looked like the Boks would take control from there.

But Joe Marchant was put in the clear by another clever bit of interplay in the midfield from England off a line-out and replacement scrumhalf Raffi Quirke was through to score a try that regained his team the lead.

That gave England much needed confidence and brought the Twickenham crowd that had been silent for nearly half an hour back into full voice.

The score meant that when Makazole Mapimpi went in for the only Bok try of the match in the 69th minute, it required replacement flyhalf Jantjies to kick the conversion from the touchline to regain the lead.

BOKS WILL FEEL IT WAS ONE THAT GOT AWAY

The Mapimpi try was the product of an excellent Bok lineout drive that just sucked in the England defenders - their forward driving did come good in the second half just like their scrumming did - and then a good long pass from Jantjies that put the flying winger in.

Jantjies wasn’t able to convert but replacement fullback Frans Steyn did step up to kick a penalty in the 72nd minute that put the Boks ahead again.

The Bok forwards were still in the ascendancy so the turning point from there was the yellow card shown to Kolisi after his challenge near the halfway line.

The penalty was awarded just inside their own half so England didn't kick for posts but they got another opportunity with just a minute and a half to go when Steyn was penalised in front of the posts.

Smith, who should have come close to upstaging fullback Steward for the man of the match award because of his excellent tactical game, particularly in the first half, doesn’t miss often and he wasn’t going to miss from there.

There was enough time to restart the game but in Etzebeth was penalised for challenging the man in the air as the Boks desperately tried to get the ball back from the kick-off and that was the game.

It was the second successive one-point win for England over the Boks at Twickenham and again the Boks will leave the venue wondering how they let it get away.

They were a distinct second in the first half but after halftime they were so much better than their opponents and really should have won with something to spare.

Scores

England 27 - Tries: Manu Tailagi, Freddie Steward and Raffi Quirke; Conversions: Marcus Smith 3; Penalties: Marcus Smith 2.

South Africa 26 - Try: Makazole Mapimpi; Penalties: Handre Pollard 5, Elton Jantjies and Frans Steyn.

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