International / Geoffrey Riddle / 21 November 2008 / Leave a comment

Martin Johnson may urge his side to keep hold of the ball but against the tough tackling, set-piece dominating South Africans possession must be converted into points, says Geoffrey Riddle.

Former international locks Justin Harrison and Paul Ackford were chewing the fat last week, the result of which formed the cornerstone of Ackford's England v South Africa preview in the Sunday Telegraph.

Harrison clearly knows what he is talking about, despite his propensity to get up most Englishmen's noses whenever he speaks, and he nailed down what England need to achieve to beat the Springboks at Twickenham this Saturday. England are [2.1] in the match betting market, while South Africa are slight favourites at [2.04]

"The team that respects possession will prevail," said the former Wallaby. "Both sides are very good at first-phase, and sometimes you get complacent when you have the ball and turn it over because you know you have a good scrum and line-out and can win it back. But that would be a mistake."

You've got to agree with him, but the key word he used is respect. Rugby is no longer a game whereby the team that enjoys the most possession and territory is awarded the win.

England found that out to their cost against Australia last week, as did Wales against South Africa the week before. Come to mention it, Scotland dominated the All Blacks at Murrayfield and still lost. They didn't even score a try.

It's a general theme going through world rugby at the moment. Consider the statistic that only five of the 15 matches in last season's Six Nations were won by the side with the most possession. It was the same in last year's rugby World Cup when just two of the 16 knock-out stage matches were won by the side who held on to the ball the most.

This is clearly a problem that England will need to sort out at Twickenham, especially as it seems that coach Martin Johnson wants to play a possession dominant game.

If you look at the matches that the Tri-Nations sides have played in this year's autumn window, they have one tactic in common: they tackle the other side to a standstill. New Zealand made 103 tackles to Scotland's 58. South Africa made 127 to Wales's 78. Australia put in 159 to England's paltry 56. What was skipper Steve Borthwick and his team doing exactly at Twickenham last week?

It is quite clear that although Southern hemisphere teams differ in rugby philosophy, they share similar characteristics. They tackle hard, they look to dominate the breakdown and, most interestingly of all, originate almost a third of their try-scoring attacks from their own half. The Six Nations teams start only a fifth of their try-scoring attacks form their own half.

It has long been known that the line-out and scrum are the two best areas to secure quality possession which leads to points but England were creaky at both set-pieces last week and they line-up against the two best line-out operators in the world in Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha. The loss of prop Andrew Sheridan at the 11th hour is a massive blow.

Another thing that could compound England's problems is that their discipline last week was atrocious. Sure, the penalty count was similar for both sides, but England gave away far too many penalties in kickable areas, and most of those were for ridiculous offences.

Most punters will point to the lack of an assured fly-half in the Springbok ranks, but they have had 10 potshots at the posts on this tour and scored with seven of them. Not bad.

Thankfully, England have an exceptional record of getting onto the score-sheet first both in the first half and the second half. They have opened the scoring in the first half at Twickenham in 11 of their last 15 matches there and they have been more prolific after the break, notching first in their last eight at HQ. They trade at [2.84] to open the scoring with a penalty.
England need these early points in both halves to settle their nerves, and to give them confidence that they can win.

South Africa are not playing their best rugby at the moment - they seem to have far too much else on their plates with all the politics and in-fighting going on - and without their leading stars such as Fourie Du Preez, Butch James and CJ Van der Linde to guide them through it, they look the worst of the three Tri-Nations teams.

Don't get me wrong, England are not far off being a decent side under Johnson, but South Africa present a massive challenge and I'm laying the Springboks at the outset, with a view to backing them in-running sometime after half-time if the price is right. I apologise if you see me shouting 'Bokke, Bokke, Bokke' somewhere on Saturday in the second-half, as there's really not a worse sight than that.