South Africa’s thin confidence popped by farcical Charlie Chaplin try for England | Michael Aylwin

The Springboks came to bully England but the scars inflicted by All Blacks thrashing were brutally exposed by a moment of slapstick at Twickenham.

So, South Africa remained unbeaten against England for a week shy of 10 years, a run of 12 matches. It was an impressive record. It is something to cling to. And they will take anything just now.

This was a dispiriting prick of the balloon – and balloon-thick is South Africa’s confidence at the moment. Now they must add the 37 points conceded here to the 57 they shipped last time out a month ago to the All Blacks – at home in Durban. Lob in a host of other indignities over the last couple of years – to Argentina, Japan and Ireland, among others – and you begin to wonder how they managed that 10-year unbeaten run against England.

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The truth is, they rode their luck. Most recently, they owed victory here in 2014 to an interception try in a match England did not particularly deserve to win, and before that, in 2012, they owed it to an absolute freak of a slapstick try in a match the Springboks very definitely did not deserve to win.

So this has been coming, and it is poetic that the match was broken, like South Africa, by another try that might sit well in the grainy footage of a Charlie Chaplin film. Ruan Combrinck and Jonny May bumped into each other and fell over, the former shovelling the ball on to Willie le Roux, who missed it. Then it was Pat Lambie and Mike Brown colliding and falling over, with that slippery sucker of a ball bouncing impishly away again, until Courtney Lawes dotted it down, just about, while others stood around bewildered.

It was an absolute warthog of a try. And it was the end of the match for South Africa.

We thought the Springboks would come out swinging. The pack they had picked was monstrous; they had the indignity of that 57-point hiding to work through their system; England had not played for months. And the rain was falling at Twickenham. Perfect conditions to rough up a side who are on a bit of a roll.

For half an hour, they were true to that script. Those bruising 19-stoners worked away at the heart of an England pack who for a while did look a little soft. The penalty count ticked over in South Africa’s favour, 6-0 up, then 9-7 with half-time approaching. A side so low on confidence had something to work with.

Then, boom. Or, rather, prick, then pop. Owen Farrell’s first penalty, followed swiftly by that farcical try, and South Africa were all over the place again.

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Allister Coetzee, the South Africa coach, observed afterwards that it was just a lack of concentration/composure/organisation (delete cliche as applicable), but coaches always say that. And it almost always is a momentary lapse in basics that initiates, and sustains, each unravelling of a team in crisis. Let’s not go into the defensive lapses for tries three and four.

The “but for silly mistakes” line is a favourite of coaches under pressure, trying to give the impression that the underlying structures are fine, that they have only a couple of kinks to straighten out before all is well. But it is a thin argument. In theory, if a team makes all its tackles and holds its defensive line, then tries would never be scored. At least on the chalkboard.

On the field, maintaining one’s basics is a manifestly difficult feat, when the lungs burn and the opposition, irritatingly, keep putting pressure on you. The measure of a side is how they react to the inevitable errors, not just the amount of pressure they can handle before they make them. By both counts, this South Africa team are where the world knows them to be – in a desperate place.

They came to bully England but imploded at the first sign of any trouble. The details of how they actually did it, the silly mistakes they made, are just that, details. The broader picture is far bleaker. Whatever the troubled circumstances in South African rugby – and they have always been there – the sport is in danger of losing as a credible force one of its most famous exponents. Nobody benefits from it.