Graphic - Blunt edge: how statistical dominance was turned into record defeat

This has been a rotten month for two men in particular, Martin Johnson and Ian McGeechan. While Johnson, as England team manager, has been striving to make a silk purse out of too many sows’ ears, McGeechan has been following South Africa in his capacity as head coach of next year’s Lions tour to the republic and has watched Wales, Scotland and England fall to the Springboks. At least Ireland will not be similarly scarred.

In McGeechan’s absence, the club of which he is director of rugby, London Wasps, have been struggling desperately to uphold their standing as English champions. Given that the Lions have become accustomed to a solid English presence, particularly at forward, McGeechan will be even more distressed to see so few candidates emerging from the Investec Challenge Series, with no obvious sign that the two remaining games next Saturday, Wales against Australia and England’s meeting with New Zealand, will alleviate the pain.

For England, it is almost as though the clock has been turned back a decade and they are enduring the “tour from Hell” — but this time at home. Sir Clive Woodward was fond of recalling the players whom he coached on that calamitous 1998 trek through Australasia and South Africa — Jonny Wilkinson, Matt Dawson, Phil Vickery — who became stalwarts of his 2003 World Cup-winning side; will England’s record home defeat on Saturday prove to be the darkest hour before the dawn?

The one thing that Johnson will not do when tomorrow he names his XV to play the All Blacks is make wholesale change. For one thing, he is restricted to the 32 players he has in his elite squad for this autumn. For another, it is difficult to argue that Dylan Hartley, say, or Simon Shaw or Mathew Tait will make that much difference in a side so lacking conviction and core strengths.

“This is when we find out about the character of this team, these are still our best players,” Johnson said. “We find out about the coaching staff, about myself. We know where we are in the big scheme of things and the guys have to be exposed to that. The coaches will try to lift them but they have to lift each other — there’s no 50-cap cavalry coming over the hill, this is our squad and we back them.”

He will know more today about the physical state of Riki Flutey (sore hamstring) and Tom Palmer (tight calf muscle). But choosing a radically different XV against the All Blacks will undo any progress in unit skills — agreed, it was not very evident on Saturday — that England have made in the past three weeks. There are key decisions, however, that Johnson must make.

The selection of Danny Cipriani at the start of the series was questionable, in the light of his serious ankle injury last May and the need to play his way back to form for his club rather than country, so should he start against Dan Carter, the world’s best fly half?

Even when England have won possession going forward, they have not been able to score points. On successive weekends against Australia and South Africa, the tackle count, possession and territory have favoured England and both matches have been lost: Australia were forced to make 159 tackles to England’s 56, here it was 143-62. Possession nine days ago was 64 per cent to 36 (against South Africa 59-41), territory 67-33 (57-43). These are figures that leave England’s inadequacies all too bare.

At present England do not have forwards of the stature and experience of South Africa and New Zealand, so must go through the fires to mould them. On that basis, change in the back division is irrelevant if the ammunition is not forthcoming up front, but what has been asked of Cipriani this month has been too much.

South Africa return home rightly jubilant. Their Tri-Nations campaign may not have been successful but they did win in New Zealand, they did score 50 points against Australia and they now feel confident about playing the Lions. “It certainly was an objective to gain some momentum for next year, the magnitude of which will be ten times what we have had over the last three weeks,” John Smit, their captain, said. “We have got a lot to work with next June.”

One irony: if Ronan O’Gara had converted Tommy Bowe’s try for Ireland against Argentina, their winning margin would have lifted England above Argentina to fourth place in the IRB global rankings.

As it is, when the official list emerges today, England remain fifth and if they lose to New Zealand and Wales beat Australia by more than 15 points, Wales could climb from sixth to fourth position and join the top seeds in next month’s World Cup draw.

Lions watch

It would be a brave man who chose any Englishman for the Lions on Saturday's showing but Tom Rees, for the second week running, and, to a degree, James Haskell, caught the eye. Both covered acres of ground without making the physical impact of a Schalk Burger or Pierre Spies.