ADRIAN WARNER, London | Thursday 10.30am.
BATTERED and bruised England admitted they will have to sharpen their game considerably — especially in defence — to have a chance of knocking defending champions South Africa out of the World Cup in the quarter-finals on Sunday.
The English booked their place in the Paris quarter-final with a comfortable 45-24 defeat of Fiji in a playoff at Twickenham on Wednesday. But coach Clive Woodward admitted his team did not play well defensively, letting in three tries.
”We’re disappointed. Defensively we were not at the races. There were gaps,” Woodward said. ”We leaked some tries. We’ve got to get the defence sorted out. We’re a bit battered and bruised but we’ll front up…I hope I can get 15 fit players on the field.”
England upset South Africa 13-7 the last time the two teams met at Twickenham at the end of last year. But while the Springboks have had the luxury of a few days of rest, England have been forced to qualify through the playoff round and have a number of players carrying minor injuries.
Scrumhalf-cum-winger Austin Healey has a back injury and winger Dan Luger, who scored a superb try on Wednesday, has a muscle strain and looks very doubtful.
Veteran centre Jeremy Guscott, who has been struggling with a groin injury, is expected to travel to Paris with the squad when they get an early train to the French capital on Thursday.
But it is unclear whether he will be fit enough to take any further part in the competition and whether he may decide to retire from international rugby in the next few days.
South Africa, on the other hand, have had nine days since their last match for any injured – such as flyhalf Henry Honiball – to recover. But coach Nick Mallett still said he was unhappy with the World Cup format which saw them open with a match against Scotland and then face Uruguay and Spain.
”Basically we had one really intense week in the build-up to the Scottish game, after which we produced a reasonable performance, and then things went flat for two weeks,” he said.
”We knew we would win those games which made them virtual practice matches. I know that we did not play well but playing in front of crowds of a couple of thousand in those huge stadia was not very encouraging.” — Reuters