MAILBOX: Where to now for England?

With England still nursing their battered bodies from the 58-10 thumping given to them at the hands of the Springboks over the weekend, we asked where to now for the defending World Cup champs? The "airport" and "home" were just a couple of places you could recommend...

A word of advice: go home!

And let's do away with all these nonsensical tours, that are only for the benefit of the organising unions. Less is more, and I'd guess at least the England players would agree.

And all that talk about South Africa striking a psychological blow; this is just like England playing Holland a couple of years ago. A big win, and nobody's any wiser. These matches serve no purpose, whatsoever.

- Sander Baas (Netherlands)

Walsh is worth at least 20 points to England. He positively cannot help his blind prejudice against Bok forwards.They could have their hands and legs tied and he would still find a penalty against them.

- Ziggy Olivier

Considering that for about 25 minutes of the second half the Boks looked like they actually had fallen asleep, the English club side got off pretty lightly.

In my opinion going to South Africa with such a weakened side, was a backward step.

It also begs the question....How much strength in depth is there in English rugby?

This weekend is waiting for the battered British, I'm sure a lot of them are already thinking of the plane trip out of South Africa.

My heart actually goes out to the England supporters. It's horrible when your team gets battered so badly.

- Chris (Cyprus)

If you do not respect your opponents and select rubbish players you will get rubbish results. Continue to protect your top players and they will become as soft as your footballers and cricketers.

This weekend's hiding will be bigger!

- Fanus Dreyer

I think we should stop kidding ourselves. Even if England had all top players available for the tour, there is absolutely no guarantee that they would win the tests in South Africa anyway. There is no "now" because our current crop of players are dire to say the least and there will be no "future" for English rugby if they persevere with the current system.

The way forward:

*Bring back Clive Woodward for a start and

*Francis Baron and all his merry men at HQ should resign, and most importantly, the game should NOT be dictated by a handful of premier league clubs.

- Kenneth J. Li (Hong Kong)

Where to now for England? Well, it depends if you think that the England on the pitch today is actually England. The fact of the matter is that this team, be it A, B, C or D string got stuffed by a Saffer outfit in form and heading towards a decent World Cup.

Well done the Boks, but an opportunity wasted for England to measure their progress since Andy Robinson's departure; poor scheduling by the IRB, not challenged by the RFU, have made this mission impossible for the guys pulling on the England shirt and stuck the national team's development back another couple of notches. What a shower of excrement our administrators are.

- Jonathan Jones

All I can say is that, never mind the match and the score, the reaction from the English players and press is pathetic.

Everywhere you read, you hear about how this is "not their best players" or how they "all got sick during the week". Not once did I see any of them take responsibility for showing up with such a useless team, by just giving credit where credit is due.

Here is the truth - England has stunk it up for years now even with their first choice players available. What is different now just because they lost by 50-something points?

This response from the English is disappointing and pathetic. They sound just like the Aussies when they lose. The only people that take losses well are the Kiwis. They take it like men and make no excuses.

- Stephen (South African living in the USA)

Am I crazy or did my favourite ref allow the England team to never leave the required gap between the lineouts, allow them to throw in skew to their players and continually not bind in the scrums?

- Larry Olivier

The only mistake England made was turning up. Typical England can never admit they were routed by a better team. The truth is not even a full strength England side would have won today!

Sure they missed 30 players, how many have proven themselves to be real quality players?

The Boks had four days to get together and linked so well, next week could be even worse for England. Wilkinson will be needed for his side, as he again showed lots of guts and determination - something which almost every England player for quite some time has been lacking.

If they continue to make excuses for themselves then they can expect a thrashing at the World Cup. A lie can only go so far and I don't see any other nation believing them. A third string Bok squad would have been enough to seal the deal on Saturday, the depth is unreal.

If South Africa can beat New Zealand (which we have done every year), then Jason Robinson should be aware that maybe the Boks were too good for them, and their lack of quality was shown for what it was.

I remember seeing in the newspapers after the England v New Zealand game a while back, "How well England did to lose to NZ". That sums them up, right there.

- Marius (Bok fan)

Come RWC time in France, England will beat SA, yet again. Beating the third team might be good for the SA egos, but it will be England at full strength in France.

- Charles Evans (Manchester)

Sadly (?) I didn't get to see the match on Saturday so have only been able to piece together what happened from the press reports this morning.

What strikes me however is that the result is symptomatic of the current problem in English rugby. No, not the gross mismanagement of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) who agreed to organized these bloody silly tests, but rather the miserable strength in depth that is now obvious in England and has been since 2003!

The team in white lost 58-10 to the Boks. That is all the history books will show and rightly so. England lost. Not England A (sorry Saxons!), not England Occasionals but England. I am a one-eyed English supporter and I'm sorry but when England take the pitch they should bloody well win! Is that arrogant? I don't bloody care!

Ever since 2003 when the majority of the team retired England have been scrabbling around for replacements and finding the cupboards pretty damn bare. Now, with the players from three teams unavailable England are fielding a front row with a combined age of 150!

Simplistically, losing the players from Bath, Leicester and Wasps should only take six props out of the equation. What about the other 18 in the Premiership?!

Yeah, yeah, foreign imports, injuries, blah, blah, blah... The simple truth is that the vast majority of players in England just aren't up to the job. I don't know the numbers here but from purely anecdotal evidence I would imagine that the three countries with the most number of players would be France, South Africa and England. We should therefore be able to produce more than a couple of decent front row forwards. Instead we simply reward mediocrity. Most Guinness Premiership games are bloody awful and this is the reason!

Until the RFU starts looking at properly developing players and putting in place a structure that rewards teams for developing talent we're gonna be stuck with more of the same. Someone needs to realise, and fast, that it's about the rugby not the bank balance!

- Andy Lee (London)

Where to now? The airport. Pointless tour, pointless RFU management board.

- Unknown