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Double RWC winner highlights one glaring weakness in England's game
By Josh Raisey
England’s inability to finish off games has become one of the defining features of their Autumn Nations Series campaign, and South Africa prop Steven Kitshoff believes that is largely due to their fitness.
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What appeared to be a slight concern during their July series against the All Blacks has manifested into a chronic problem for Steve Borthwick’s side, who have held the lead in the final 25 minutes in each of their last seven matches, but have only come away victors in one, against Japan.
The England boss has already raised his concerns over his side’s fitness this November, which would not have been helped by strength and conditioning coaches Aled Walters and Tom Tombleson leaving over the summer.
While the new enhanced EPS contracts will give Borthwick greater control over his players, specifically their fitness, while they are with their clubs, Kitshoff feels it is an area they have been found wanting over their last three matches.
England have adopted a physically taxing blitz defence, one that the South African would know well as it came from former Springboks coach Felix Jones. The double World Cup winner will therefore know the physical requirements to play such a style.
The chasm in fitness between the two sides was laid bare at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium, as the 14-man Springboks were able to absorb everything an increasingly sloppy England threw at them to win 20-29.
Joining Jean de Villiers and Schalk Burger on the latest episode of RugbyPass TV’s Boks Office, Kitshoff highlighted how many teams struggle against the world champions in the final quarter, particularly when they unleash their ‘Bomb Squad’.
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“It’s almost a cliche, it’s a fitness thing,” Kitshoff said when analysing why England cannot close out matches.
“It’s that slow poison. Teams just struggle towards the back end of the second half [against South Africa], especially when the forwards come on at the same time.
“Somehow they just can’t manage to find space anymore, the breakdown becomes slower, you get big poaching pressure from Malcolm [Marx] and Kwagga [Smith] and those okes.
“So I think sometimes teams just run out of a bit of gas towards the end of it.”
De Villiers and Burger added that the strength of South Africa’s bench compared to England’s meant the hosts’ intensity dropped off, allowing the world champions to build an unassailable nine-point lead.
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“Is it also because more of their guys need to go deeper because they don’t have the depth on the bench that we have?” the former centre said.
“I don’t think George Ford was used. You’re sitting with a guy you can use him, it’s within the laws of the game, and even though there are plenty of opinions on that, you don’t use him. So you miss out.”
Burger added: “We back our bench to the hilt unless you go 7-1 and you’ve got to keep Grant [Williams] for the last 10 minutes. This weekend, you’ve got to go and finish the game.
“For me, they still created enough opportunities and every single game it’s like the bigger moments are running away from them at the moment. We’ve all been in teams where you’ve had seasons like this and it almost becomes a bit of a habit of losing these and throwing these ones away.”
“If you look at the bench, they can’t really compete with the bench we had and ultimately they fall short in that regard.
I think there's a lot of truth to that. Improved fitness, which is something that can be improved at least, would help make for better decision-making in the latter stages of the game. I also feel though that we just haven't developed enough depth yet, as they allude to. That should be the focus looking ahead. Considering how well England have done at age-grade level in recent years, we can clearly see the talent is there. It's just a case of stepping up to senior level. I do believe that Conor O'Shea has implemented a few things that will pay off. How the EPS contracts play out will be interesting and you would think would help get more out of the players, so, unlike the media storm out there, I'm not overly concerned with England at the moment. I'm more concerned with Wales. We need to be giving them encouragement and helping where we can there. At the end of the day international rugby needs to be as tight, exciting and competitive as possible if the game is to develop and spread worldwide, which it really hasn't done that well over the decades, until maybe more recently.