Warning for England but Wilkinson's boot is true

Perfect, just perfect. Not the England performance, of course; even allowing for the almost unnatural intensity of the forward battle, an intensity more fearsome for the fact that the most violent acts were perpetrated entirely within the laws of the game, the error-count was far too high. But the consequences could hardly be more to Clive Woodward's liking. While his World Cup favourites took most from this mighty struggle, the team who took least were not South Africa, but New Zealand - the one side in the tournament Woodward genuinely fears. The All Blacks are far from happy, the poor petals.

The Blacks and the Boks are now 95 per cent certain to be thrown together in the first of the quarter-finals, under the roof of Melbourne's Telstra Dome on 8 November. There, they will write another chapter of the most compelling, not to say bloody, story this most myth-laden of sports has ever concocted for itself and its adherents. Until events unfolded at the Subiaco Oval on Saturday, it was generally assumed that South Africa's prospects in this competition depended entirely on victory over England, as they were not equipped to threaten their traditional rivals for global supremacy. Now, that view can legitimately be challenged.

As Andy Robinson, the England forwards coach, readily agreed yesterday, the Springbok pack asked such serious questions of Martin Johnson and company here that they re-established themselves among the tournament's major players. "We had a strong idea they would be good; as it turns out, they are back to their best," he said. "They scrummaged very powerfully, they have two wonderful young back-rowers in Joe van Niekerk and Juan Smith, and their commitment at the breakdown was frightening. It will be some match-up in Melbourne."

And that is right up England's alley, for the Six Nations' champions are now unlikely to be tested again before the semi-final stage. Samoa might leave small piles of English injured dotted around the state of Victoria this weekend, but will not leave much of a mark on the scoreboard; a last-eight match with Wales or Italy will have its awkward moments, but not enough of them to cause lasting embarrassment.

The All Blacks, meanwhile, have a hard road ahead of them, and not even the most myopic self-delusionist from downtown Dunedin would bet his wooden house on them reaching the end of it now the Boks are hot once more.

England emerged from the events of the weekend with dark smudges against the names of a couple of forwards - Phil Vickery suffered all manner of hassle in the scrummage against the powerful unknown quantity, Christo Bezuidenhout; Lewis Moody has developed a sudden and very expensive habit of conceding really stupid penalties - and a big red question mark against the name of Will Greenwood. The Harlequins centre, a match-winner on matchstick legs, will not be winning any matches for at least 12 days, and possibly longer, on account of the fact that he has flown back to London to be with his pregnant wife, Caro, who is in hospital.

If Greenwood's thoughts were not entirely dominated by sporting concerns, there was no outward sign of distraction on Saturday. Confronted by the formidable De Wet Barry, who cuts through midfield opponents the way a chainsaw cuts through balsa wood, he played with a cool-minded detachment that would have been valuable in any big World Cup match, and was utterly priceless under the unusual circumstances created by Jonny Wilkinson's fallibility in every department bar the obvious: goalkicking.

The fact that Greenwood also scored the only try of the game, side-footing a Moody charge-down into the killer area of the pitch with all the cunning and dexterity of a Johnny Giles and then beating the cover to the touch-down, only emphasised his importance to England's campaign.

He did drop one clanger, and it might have cost Woodward's side the match. In first-half injury time, after Louis Koen had drifted a 40-metre penalty past the left upright, Greenwood forgot to ground the ball before lobbing it absent-mindedly to a colleague for the 22-metre restart. Peter Marshall, the referee, correctly called a forward pass and awarded a five-metre scrum to the Boks. Joost van der Westhuizen, supremely dangerous at such moments, slipped away from the base to create the overlap, and the try would surely have been scored had Kyran Bracken not dived headlong into the furnace of the South African set-piece and robbed Smith of the ball.

Bracken's act of bravery, as inspirational as it was reckless, was not an isolated incident. Anything but. Together with the tireless Neil Back, who generally leaks a few drops of crimson when the Boks come knocking on England's door and shed a gallon here, the scrum-half threw himself, body and soul, into the fray. He did not look fully fit - the suspicion remains that his back, which went into spasm before the opening match with Georgia, is giving him grief - and his service to Wilkinson was less than smooth. But Van der Westhuizen, no mean practitioner of the half-back's art, found life equally testing, for the ferocity of the contest for the loose ball ruled out any possibility of clean possession.

Had England's defence been anything less than watertight, and had Ben Kay not managed to burgle the South African line-out at important moments, the result might have gone against them. Indeed, had Koen kicked even a couple of the difficult penalties he attempted during the opening period, or the Springbok backs remained just a little calmer in attack, England would now be contemplating their own little tête à tête with the All Blacks. If Jaco van der Westhuyzen, a gifted but error-prone full-back recalled to the squad when Jean de Villiers withdrew through injury, does not wake up screaming at the memory of his failure to maximise a three-on-one overlap at the end of the third quarter, he is a man without a conscience.

According to Corne Krige, the Springbok captain, and Van der Westhuizen, his senior lieutenant, England can now officially be described as "vulnerable". Krige detected a sense of panic among his opponents before Greenwood's freak try cut the ground from beneath South African feet - "I could hear them shouting and swearing at each other, and the things they said gave me heart," he revealed afterwards - while his colleague described the victors as "definitely beatable".

That may well be the case: only one side in the 16-year history of the World Cup, the 1987 All Blacks who won the inaugural tournament, were overwhelmingly superior to the best of the rest. It is also true to say that this English display, with all its technical aberrations, would have left them horribly exposed against a more rounded team - France, for example, with their sureness of touch in the backs and their innate appreciation of the correct attacking option.

But it is also a fact that in Wilkinson - or, to be more precise, in Wilkinson's goalkicking - England possess the most punishing weapon of any side in the competition. Not even Doug Howlett or Joe Rokocoko, Mat Rogers or Brian O'Driscoll, will hurt so many opponents on so many occasions. Wilkinson's marksmanship, so accurate that his side now assumes a 100 per cent strike-rate, is not affected by the collapse of the rest of his game, as he proved in Wellington in June and again on Saturday. If teams infringe against England - and the allegedly ill-disciplined Boks conceded only 12 penalties here, two less than their rivals - they will be left dangling from the lamppost.

Wilkinson's way of winning a World Cup may not be exciting, or even particularly edifying. But it may well come to pass.

England: Try Greenwood. Conversion Wilkinson. Penalties Wilkinson 4. Drop Goals Wilkinson 2. South Africa: Penalties Koen 2.

ENGLAND: J Lewsey; J Robinson, M Tindall (D Luger, 73), W Greenwood, B Cohen; J Wilkinson, K Bracken; T Woodman (J Leonard, 76), S Thompson, P Vickery, M Johnson (capt), B Kay, L Moody, N Back (J Worsley, 47-52), L Dallaglio.

SOUTH AFRICA: Jaco Van der Westhuyzen; A Willemse, J Muller, D Barry, T Delport; L Koen (D Hougaard, 70), Joost Van der Westhuizen; C Bezuidenhout, D Coetzee (J Smit, 44-51, 58), R Bands (L Sephaka, 7-16, 70), B Botha, V Matfield, C Krige (capt), J Van Niekerk, J Smith.

Referee: P Marshall (Australia)

VERDICT ON ENGLAND

They have the maturity a good team need to go through difficult patches. Jonny Wilkinson was very good at kicking back the Springboks deep into their territory when they seemed to be on top.
The France coach, Bernard Laporte

I was impressed with the way South Africa took it to the English. It shows no team is infallible and that if you put any team under pressure they will make mistakes. They [England] got out of their mistakes, which is a sign of a good side.
The New Zealand prop Dave Hewett

Their top players made mistakes under pressure. They made a lot of fundamental errors. I've said this for a long time: there are half a dozen top teams that can beat each other at any given time.
The Australia captain, George Gregan

When we stretched them out wide they looked vulnerable and I don't think the final score was a true reflection. Maybe it was the difference between experience and youth - and Jonny's kicking.
The South Africa coach, Rudolf Straeuli

We were a bit fortunate in the first half, but in the second we turned much of the pressure into points.
The England captain, Martin Johnson