Chris Hewett: No holds barred in this English exam

COMMENT

Even that nice John Eales - a member of the rugby priesthood, not a man to put a toenail out of place, let alone a fist - is at it.

"At times, England's rolling maul is clearly obstruction," he said this week. "It's the equivalent of a decoy play in the backline."

Now, England are well used to this sort of thing from the Wallabies, who like nothing better than to identify a threatening part of an opponent's game and spend the week bleating about it in an effort to plant the issue in the referee's mind.

But England are not playing the Wallabies. They are playing the Springboks, and when it comes to the World Cup, the Springboks do not give a tinker's cuss about anything much, except victory.

This may sound strange, given recent events at Twickenham and in Brisbane, but there is something pure about a test involving the South Africans.

There is no subterfuge, no chicanery, no smart-arsery; they do not bother with mind games or psychological one-upmanship. What you see is what you get, from kick-off to final whistle.

And that is what worries England, who are decidedly cranky about this fixture.

Why? Because it is a no-excuses deal, a straightforward examination of their big-match temperament. They know they are good, very good, in every technical department of the game, but can they hack it when someone turns the blow-torch to full blast?

If they fail, there will be only one conclusion: that their nerve crumbles on the important occasion.

Martin Johnson knows this better than anyone, which was why he said that his team should be prepared to "do it to them before they do it to us."

There could be any number of definitions of "it," but most people got the general drift. Johnson expects this to be a ferocious scrap. He is relishing it, too. The captain understands more than most about the Bokke psyche because he recognises much of himself in them.

The question is: how many other English players are capable of standing alongside him when the solids hit the air-conditioning?

England have injuries. They say their main men are fine, that the Matt Dawsons and Richard Hills are 100 per cent fit after picking up knocks against Georgia.

Nobody really believes them, though; Dawson has not trained properly all week.

And then there is form. Lawrence Dallaglio did not exactly hit the heights against the Georgians - when was the last time he made so few metres with the ball? - while Jason Robinson looked strangely impotent. One way or another, the big match build-up has not gone to plan.

But England believe they remain handsomely equipped to hurt the Boks where it really matters, in the scrums and lineouts, and that their tight forwards have the winning of the game in their huge, hairy mitts.

Corne Krige and Bakkies Botha may have the capacity to intimidate 95 per cent of the international rugby-playing population, but Johnson is to be found among the remaining 5 per cent.

The same goes for Trevor Woodman, Steve Thompson, Phil Vickery and Ben Kay. As a unit, they have an extra dimension.

Only the French would back themselves to stare in their faces and live to tell the tale.

With Johnson at the epicentre of the struggle, England not only have the firepower to win, but the attitude, too.

However, the captain has to stay the course in what promises to be an epic struggle. Without him, the Northern Hemisphere champions would look far less formidable.

* Chris Hewett is chief rugby writer for Britain's INDEPENDENT

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