England must bin old routine to snap losing run against South Africa

We humans are funny things, often happier in a routine than forcing our hands to challenge or push boundaries.

Content with the status quo, we often persuade ourselves that change is a negative or too risky. Even when, oddly enough, often that routine or habit becomes a negative. Something we once believed added security into our daily lives can become detrimental. Falling into a behavioural routine that feels right, consistent and comfortable.

It is this habitual fallacy where England are existing at present, sticking to the script and trusting the current process will work.

Closing out international games, or the inability to do so in England’s case, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The actions of those individuals involved create a sense of the inevitable. Knowingly or not, we communicate subtly, via body language, facial expressions and tone. In the moments of heightened stress we pick up on those small signals.

For England’s players in those dying seconds against Australia, even when they surged ahead with just over two minutes on the clock, there would have been belief. When Marcus Smith banged over the touchline conversion, it would have deepened, and those soft signals grew positively.

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Then came Maro Itoje’s dropped restart. A small mistake in the context of the whole game but a critical one. No matter the efforts to motivate and invigorate his fellow men in white, the knowledge that England had given one last chance to Australia will have sent nervous signals across the group.

Does that mean England were not in the ascendancy? Not at all but it meant they had to drop back into their defensive routine and commit to the system that let them down a week before in another agonising defeat to New Zealand.

Trust, too, is key in clutch moments. Smith stepping in on the edge, when it looked like Ollie Sleightholme would recover shows a lack of trust in the system. It is tough to say Smith could or should have stayed out, but in those key decision-making moments it is easier not to take that risk, to stay safe and to not change. To not change that habit.

The key issue is England must find a solution, a way to win and more importantly a way to suppress the self-destruct habit that has become part of their recent DNA.

This is certainly possible for Steve Borthwick’s side, who just a few months ago burst into life to produce a huge upset in beating overwhelming favourites Ireland in a thrilling Six Nations encounter.

But the other, more immediate, issue is that the double world champions are coming to town this weekend, and they do not often carry much sympathy for the opposition. South Africa are ruthless, if below their normal standards in their victory over Scotland last Sunday.

They are full of more guile than they are often given credit for behind the scrum. The Boks can use trickery as well as their more renowned brutality. Although running a 7/1 split on the bench against Scotland showed their desire to tenderise the Scottish before running up the scoreboard.

For England the task is as difficult a challenge as there is in world rugby right now. However, the equation cannot be any more simple.

Stay in their routine, and stick to the habitual behaviour they have displayed so far, then the result is already nailed on – and it will not be the hosts who will be celebrating. But change, break the status quo, take some risks and who knows? Wouldn’t it be so very like England under Borthwick 
to somehow win this one.

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