They say a man ought to know his limitations, and England discovered theirs at the Stade de France on Saturday night. They are somewhere right out on the furthest edge of contention, as close as you can go without actually making it. They were, in their own tenacious way, utterly brilliant, cunning, courageous, and committed, but those qualities only get you so far when you’re up against a team as good as these Springboks, who have just as much of all of them, and more of everything else besides. “Never wrestle with a pig,” said George Bernard Shaw, “you both get dirty, and besides the pig likes it”. Well, now Steve Borthwick knows you never try to grapple with a Springbok, either.
Some defeats cut deeper than others. This one, in the dying moments of a match that England led from the very first minute right through an hour and 17 minutes of brutal and excruciating rugby, will hurt more than most. England were oh so close to making the final. They used to measure the number of people watching big events on TV by the power surge on the National Grid when everyone got up to put their kettles on for a cup of tea at half-time. This time it might well have been by the spike in traffic on the travel and hotel websites as England fans watching back home picked up their phones and investigated the idea of getting out to Paris for the final.
