By Mitch Phillips
LONDON (Reuters) – England ended their 10-year winless streak against South Africa in emphatic style on Saturday as they outclassed a desperately limited Springbok side for a 37-21 Twickenham victory that made it 10 wins out of 10 under coach Eddie Jones.
Two tries in each half, from Jonny May, Courtney Lawes, George Ford and Owen Farrell, were a fair reflection of England’s dominance against a team they had not beaten since 2006.
While England can celebrate ending a run of 11 defeats and a draw in the fixture, South Africa know they have a lot of rebuilding to do after slumping to their fifth defeat in six matches and never looking remotely like doing anything else.
The only time they were in the game was in the opening 20 minutes as Pat Lambie’s boot cashed in on England’s indiscipline.
“There’s plenty to work on, so that keeps us grounded,” said England captain Dylan Hartley.
“We conceded six penalties in the opening 20 minutes and that isn’t good enough. But we’re very happy to get that monkey off our back and I’m very proud of our guys.”
England claimed the opening try after 12 minutes when May, whose last Twickenham outing in December ended with a knee injury that ended his season, showed he had not lost any of his explosive pace as from clean lineout ball he hit the corner.
The game was effectively settled in the last five minutes of the first half after the Springboks had lost key lock Eben Etzebeth following a clash of heads.
Elliot Daly, whose visionary left-footed kicking was always likely to add to England’s options, chipped a testing one behind the Springbok defence.
Mike Brown dived on it but failed to collect – or crucially touch the ball with his hand – and lock Lawes was on hand to dive on the ball to score his first international try on his 50th appearance.
Daly, who landed two halfway line penalties at Twickenham as a teenager when winning the Schools Cup final, smoothly did the same thing with the last action of the half to give England a 20-9 interval lead.
England came out firing in the second half and after a period of sustained pressure scrumhalf Ben Youngs left lock-turned flanker Pieter-Steph du Toit flailing with an outrageous dummy before setting up Ford for England’s third try.
Another Farrell penalty brought the 30 points up after 50 minutes and though South Africa scored in a rare attack through Johan Goosen there was no feeling that a comeback was on the cards.
A fired-up Youngs duly did Du Toit again with a another dummy, Farrell the beneficiary this time.
Willie le Roux had the final say with a try in the corner but it was little consolation on a day where England’s progress under Jones took another step forwards.
“We just couldn’t put any pressure on the England team and we felt it the whole game,” South Africa captain Adriaan Strauss said.
“We’ll have a hard look at ourselves on Monday and we’ll fight back.”
(Editing by Ed Osmond)
Copyright 2016 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.
