Care delight at show of faith

Care: another chance to shine

Related links

Teams

• England

Also see

• Sky Sports experts
• Rugby on Sky
• Live scores

Danny Care feels Martin Johnson will be rewarded for sticking by his new-look England side in the wake of last weekend's defeat to Australia.

Despite watching his team succumb to a 28-14 defeat at Twickenham, England team manager Johnson has resisted the temptation to make a raft of changes for this week's showdown with world champions South Africa.

Indeed, James Haskell's inclusion at the expense of Tom Croft at blindside flanker is the only modification Johnson has made to his starting XV.

Care insists there is enough quality in the squad for Johnson to have experimented with new faces, but is delighted at his show of faith in the team.

"The great thing about the squad is that there is a massive amount of competition for places. You have to be on your mettle every game," stated the 21-year-old Harlequins scrum-half who will win his fifth cap on Saturday.

"But it's great that Martin has put the trust in us. If there were loads of changes I don't think we would ever gel as a squad.

"Sticking together is going to bring us closer and make us better.

"Losing an international game is heartbreaking. The frustration drives you on. It's a great motivational tool.

"We couldn't have asked for a better game than playing against the world champions at home to redeem how we played last week."

Ill-discipline

Care admits England will have to tighten up following a display undermined by both tactical and general ill-discipline against Australia.

Johnson criticised his team for going "off script" last Saturday while the Wallabies were also gifted 21 points through penalties.

Care remains hopeful, though, that he and his team-mates will put the lessons of that defeat into practice against the Springboks.

"There were times when we weren't working as a 15 against Australia, when we were doing some individual stuff," he added. "But we are still learning as a team and sometimes you do go off script a bit. That is the challenge for us, to stick to the system and believe it will work.

"We're still learning the way we want to play, it was only our second game, hopefully we'll get better and better each week.

"We had a bit of ill-discipline last week which cost us. Also some of our basic skills weren't up to scratch. We have to massively step up this week.

"We gave away silly penalties which normally we wouldn't. The mindset now is to cut them out and we have definitely got the ability to do that.

"It's a dream for me to be in the side to face the world champions. I'm proud to be in this position and hopefully it will be a special day for the whole team."