Steve Borthwick’s ‘painful’ verdict on England’s yellow cards, their lost ‘critical contest episodes’ and George Furbank’s emergency surgery
England players show their dejection in Johannesburg and, inset, an example of the aerial battle
England boss Steve Borthwick has claimed that his team’s latest “painful” defeat – their fifth on the bounce – will be “an important development step” for them.
Having lost successive matches to Scotland, Ireland, Italy and France to finish fifth in the recent Six Nations, the English opened their Nations Championship campaign with another loss, this time away to South Africa in Johannesburg.
An ugly start left Borthwick’s team trailing 17-0 after just 12 minutes, and while they reduced the margin to 17-14 before half-time and were only 31-21 behind with 12 minutes remaining, they were ultimately beaten 45-21.
Their end-game display wasn’t helped by the yellow cards sustained by Tommy Freeman and Guy Pepper, reducing them to 13 players in a match where the penalty count finished 13-6 against them.
Eight yellow cards in five matches
This card trouble was a continuation of the indiscipline that has dogged England throughout 2026. They have now shipped eight yellow cards in five matches and conceded a total of 56 penalties, averaging more than 11 per game.
Following his team’s latest setback, Borthwick was quizzed at his post-game media briefing at Ellis Park about the latest yellow cards, which left South Africa to finish the match with a two-try flourish that could have been even worse for England.
“Clearly, if you look at that, the Tommy Freeman one was one where it was unfortunate where we see those slight timing errors,” suggested the head coach. “I don’t think you’d regard Tommy Freeman as trying to do anything malicious or reckless there; he is just trying to make a tackle, and he is clearly apologetic for tackling high.
“The Guy Pepper one, South Africa put players under pressure because that is the way they play, and they are very good. You want execution to be at an incredibly high level; you want decision making to be at a high level. Some young players will learn from this experience of playing against the best in the world that you have got to be very clear and very clinical.”
England’s two-card trick: the numbers behind a team that keeps sending itself off
Away from the indiscipline, Borthwick highlighted England’s aerial game as a weakness against what South Africa produced in this area of play. “There were a couple of critical contest episodes, one of them clearly being in the air where South Africa did very well with their contestable kicking.
“A huge number of them were won back to create opportunity for them. That was clear, and you have got to credit South Africa with that. They do that very well, and they force pressure on the opposition once they get into the 22; everyone knows they are very hard to stop.”
England’s round two match in the new tournament will be in Liverpool next Saturday in what is ‘officially’ a home match for Fiji, who were beaten 39-24 by Wales in their round one match.
Borthwick claimed that the painful experience his team suffered in the southern hemisphere will stand to them. “All the coaches and players will be working very hard this coming week to play the periods of rugby we played from being 17-0 down after 12 minutes.
“The way the players, led by Jamie (George), played tough and worked so very, very hard for huge parts of the game and, ultimately, we came here and scored three tries and another disallowed.
“Those are the periods we want to extend; those are the bits we want to play for 80 minutes. Playing against the best team in the world, it doesn’t get much tougher than that. Whilst it was a painful experience, we’ll make sure for the long-term development of the team it’s an important development step for us.”
One player who won’t be part of Borthwick’s plans for the remaining July matches against Fiji and Argentina will be George Furbank. He was chosen to start as the England full-back against the Springboks only to take ill on Friday and require an operation on Saturday in Johannesburg.
“He went into hospital with abdominal pain, had surgery on his appendix. He is now still in hospital and recovering. I spoke with him earlier on and shared messages with him. He is doing well.
“He is disappointed, really gutted to miss the game and yes, you’re right with your prognosis for the next couple of weeks (that he won’t be able to play)… We think he will be delayed in South Africa to fly back at a later date.”
