Jamie George admitted England were punished for their indiscipline as they crashed to a fifth straight Test defeat after being outclassed 45-21 by South Africa at Ellis Park.
Tommy Freeman and Guy Pepper were shown yellow cards for illegal tackles that meant Steve Borthwick’s tourists were forced to play the final seven minutes of their Nations Championship opener with only 13 men.
Inevitably they then leaked tries to Malcolm Marx and BJ Dixon to complete a harrowing evening in Johannesburg.
England have now been hit with 10 yellow cards and one red in their six games in 2026 to continue the self-destructive theme that was raised by their post-Six Nations review as an area of concern.
Captain George said: “There are some clear things we need to make sure we get better at and as players we have to take a lot more responsibility with regards to our discipline, which let us down.
“Outside of that, there were periods where we put the Springboks under a lot of pressure. Speaking to their guys they know they have been in a Test match.
“We are going to be a significantly better team off the back of this experience with a young team coming here and understanding how we put them under a lot of pressure and also understanding how we let that pressure get to us a little bit.
“This is going to be a great learning experience for us but we are gutted because we genuinely believed we could come here and win.
“We are going to rally round, stay tight and we are all looking forward to getting to Liverpool and putting in a great performance against Fiji.”
Freeman was sent to the sin-bin for a dangerous tackle in the 71st minute and a minute later Pepper followed him into the stands for a late challenge.
In reality the game had already been lost after the world champions cranked up the power in the second half and Borthwick refused to blame either player.
The head coach said: “If you look at the Tommy Freeman one you see a slight timing error, there wasn’t anything malicious or reckless there. He was trying to make a tackle and he was apologetic for the tackling height.
“The Guy Pepper one, South Africa put players under pressure because that is the way they play and they are very good.
“We want our execution and decision making to be at a very high level and these young players will learn from this experience of playing against the best in the world.”
Borthwick confirmed that full-back George Furbank will miss the rest of the July tour after he was withdrawn from the team to face South Africa because of appendicitis.
The England boss said: “He went into hospital on Friday evening with abdominal pain, he had surgery this morning on his appendix and he is still in hospital recovering.
“I spoke with him earlier, he is gutted and he will miss the next couple of weeks. He will be delayed in South Africa to fly back at a later date.”
