Tune in to Sky Sports Action and Main Event from 3pm on Saturday to watch the first Test between England and South Africa
Wednesday 6 June 2018 14:01, UK
Only three England captains have tasted victory in South Africa. We speak to Martin Johnson, Will Carling and John Pullin who reveal what it takes to beat the Springboks in their own backyard.
History is against Eddie Jones' side with England having only ever won three times in South Africa.
England's first win was in 1972 when captain John Pullin led the visitors to an unexpected 18-9 victory at Ellis Park.
Their second success, inspired by 27 points from Rob Andrew, was in 1994 when Will Carling's team produced a 32-15 win in Pretoria.
England's most recent win in South Africa was in 2000 when the side captained by Martin Johnson were indebted to Jonny Wilkinson's kicking, with the fly-half scoring all their points in the 27-22 victory in Bloemfontein.
South Africa are unbeaten in the last five home clashes against England and have lost just one of their last 13 meetings.
So what will it take for England to win in South Africa? The three victorious captains have shared their memories of those historic victories and what they see as key to beating the Boks on their own soil.
England's last success in South Africa was 18 years ago with Johnson bouncing back from injury to reclaim his place in a side determined to avenge the 1999 Rugby World Cup quarter-final defeat to the Boks.
"Every team has its characteristics, with South Africa you know they are going to be exceptionally physical, have big, big men, with pace and power," said Johnson.
"Andre Venter epitomised South African forward play, he's just one of those guys who doesn't show any emotion on the field, you could hit him with a sledgehammer and he wouldn't flinch. You know what you have got to deal with."
But that did not stop Johnson's England meeting fire with fire.
Recalling a key moment in the first Test, he said, "We gave them a big shove and moved them big time and that's something that I had never experienced against South Africa. It's one of those things that gives you a lot of confidence, you suddenly think 'wow'.
"We could match them, we could match their physicality and we could match their pace and their skill and all the rest of it and it was a damn good game of rugby and one we should have probably won."
England's Tim Stimpson was denied what would have been a crucial second-half try when he appeared to be taken out off the ball in-goal by South Africa's Andre Vos with the hosts going on to claim an 18-13 victory.
"When you are away from home you don't get those calls," insisted Johnson. "That's what you have to overcome sometimes at home but losing that game gave us the knowledge that we were good enough."
The focus then switched to Bloemfontein for the second Test.
"It was the first time I had played at that stadium so I enjoyed that," said Johnson, "it is not as big as the other ones so has a more of a personal feel to it but they let you know their feelings about the English when you are in the Free State."
It proved to be what Johnson called a 'pure' game of rugby and he was clear about what was required.
"The best thing you can do as a captain is play well, because that's what you need 15 guys to do - play well and we'll probably win this game."
England fly-half Jonny Wilkinson proved pivotal but Johnson insisted that the rest of the team deserved to share the credit.
"People have to give them the opportunity to score those points," said Johnson.
"These guys have got to kick the goals and that is a great skill and you need them but the rest of the team has got to do its job, they are not going to pull those points out of the hat if the rest of the team are getting a kicking, it's not going to happen so it was a massive team effort."
The Boks were not going to go down quietly but Johnson was ready for their resurgence.
"Whenever we play South Africa there are those times when they suddenly get the ball and they'll off up the field and people will be scrambling to make tackles, there are times when it is all hands to the pump and you've got to do something pretty desperate.
"It is hand-to-hand combat at that point, isn't it? It gets down to desperate, last ditch stuff."
But England were not to be denied and once again they made sure that they marked the occasion with a fitting celebration.
"It ended up as one of those nights when it was very late when we got back, very late, in fact it was quite early!" admitted Johnson.
"We went straight to breakfast, there was a half a dozen of us sitting there, one smoking a cigar. Clive had called a 9 o'clock press conference because he had won the game and was going to brief the press before we went home. He walked in and said, 'You lads are up early!' I don't think he had any idea."
Six years earlier, England had tasted success on South African soil with Carling at the helm and he reveals it was Bok skipper Francois Pienaar who inspired them to victory.
"To be honest, it was not something we thought we could do, it was just the kind of place everything was stacked against you," said Carling.
"It was a brutal tour, we didn't pick up any momentum, in fact it was the reverse," explained Carling, who side lost four out of five games before their first encounter with the Springboks.
One particular defeat to Transvaal and an encounter with Pienaar on the eve of their first meeting with the Boks sticks in the memory.
"It was one of those defining moments," said Carling. "I remember lying in the changing room afterwards, I was livid and Pienaar came in and I think he meant to give a 'thanks for coming and playing' and all that lot but it ended with the great line, 'we think potentially you are a really good team guys'."
He had inadvertently given the England team talk for the first Test.
"As he walked out I remember looking at Dean Richards and I said, 'Next week, next week," said Carling.
But there was clearly still work to do and Carling set about getting his side prepped.
"After we lost that game I called a team meeting and said, 'Guys, it's not going well, any ideas about what we need to do this week? What do we need to change?'
"Dean Richards said, first of all, no drinking this week, and most people nodded and said OK apart from the [future] RFU president Jason Leonard who went, 'what do you mean no drinking?' He was in meltdown at the thought of not having a couple of pints but I'm sure he sneaked out and had them anyway."
As for the game itself, Carling and co had it all planned - starting with the kick-off.
"After Pienaar's little chat in the changing room the week before, our one tactic was wherever he stood, that was where we kicked off too and hopefully got him on the floor and welcomed him to Loftus," said the skipper.
"We were annoyed, we knew we had played badly in the games so far, we were annoyed with what had happened the week before. I think we were frightened of being hammered and all that is classic English, backs to the wall, and I think they [South Africa] were probably shocked by the start."
Carling was also grateful for a vintage display from his fly-half Andrew.
"I think that was Rob's only good game for England!" joked Carling. "He was always a superb tactical kicker, a superb tactician, I think he tried to play a bit flatter because we wanted to attack, a little bit more ball in hand than we had done.
"They probably expected us to play a slower more tactical kicking game, but we wanted to play ball in hand, Rob just had one of those games and he actually scored a try which for Rob was quite shocking - although it was off a kick obviously!"
A rare victory in South Africa understandably prompted great celebrations but that is where Carling believes they let themselves down in the build-up to the second Test that was won 27-9 by the hosts.
"It was a great win and massively enjoyable," he said. "I wanted to win a series, we over-enjoyed that win, and however we pretended to get in the same frame of mind for the second Test we didn't achieve it."
Twenty two years earlier, England stunned their hosts with a win that took everyone by surprise - especially the South Africans who refused to turn up for the after-match function.
"In 1972 we were the worst team in the Championship, we had the Wooden Spoon," said Pullin, reflecting on a disastrous Five Nations campaign in which his side lost every game.
It was far from the perfect preparation for facing South Africa and fear gripped the England squad.
"Several people declared that they didn't want to tour because they thought we were going to take such a hiding that they would never play for England again."
Pullin was also in no doubt about the challenge facing his side but knew his side boasted quality of their own.
"It was frightening really, the size of them," he said. "In my days you never saw a bad South Africa side, you would always put a South African pack in front of a New Zealand pack, they were huge fellows and fairly mobile too, but the thing you really noticed was the strength of them.
"But we had a very good back row, probably one of the best back rows I've played with," insisted Pullin. "We had Johnny Watkins, Andy Ripley and Tony Neary and you wouldn't come up against a better back row than that."
A shock victory ensured they ended the seven-game tour unbeaten - a fact their hosts found hard to stomach.
"There's always a reception after with a few drinks and the players mix up but the South African team didn't turn up, they refused to come, that's how badly they took it," said Pullin.
"They had been beaten by a load of no-hopers basically, well that's what we were labelled when we went there.
"When you look at the record, the fact that we were unbeaten in South Africa rarely gets mentioned, but it is a fact and was great to be part of it."
