England rue scrum turnaround and lack of tries

PARIS : In 2019 England lost the World Cup final to South Africa when their scrum was dismantled, with replacement prop Dan Cole widely criticised after being thrown into the mix in the third minute after Kyle Sinckler was knocked out.

Four years on England fans woke up wondering what might have been had Cole not been replaced by Sinckler, who immediately gave away two penalties after coming on as the Springbok scrum suddenly achieved total domination and propelled them to their 16-15 comeback semi-final victory.

Coach Steve Borthwick had tweaked his front row for the match, hoping that Sinckler and Ellis Genge would bring energy from the bench, but the move backfired badly.

Veterans Cole and Joe Marler had played their part in giving England scrum parity but that flipped after they were replaced after 56 and 53 minutes as the Springboks' fresh props earned four scrum penalties that turned the game.

However, England could and should have been out of sight by then. Over the match they enjoyed 73 per cent possession and it seemed almost the entire second half was played in the South African half.

England's only points though were from Owen Farrell's 53rd-minute drop goal and they did not seem to have a plan on how to garner more. There were no further drop goal attempts and no attempt to move the ball wide to engineer a try in the slippery conditions.

Instead, it seemed as if they were passively banking on pressuring the Springboks into conceding another penalty or two, which almost certainly would have been enough to win the game, but the defending champions' discipline held firm under immense pressure and kept them in the game.

The one occasion England did get into a great lineout position to set up a try-threatening maul,