england v south africa

England v South Africa Betting Odds
England to win: 1/2 at Paddy Power
Draw: 22/1 at Unibet
South Africa: 2/1 at Bet365

Online Bookmaker Promotion: SportingBet are running Rugby Refunds for the weekend. If the handicap tie is the winning selection for any of the Autumn Internationals, then SportingBet will refund your losing bet as a free bet, right up to the value of £25! So, have a bet on any Handicap Prices for any of this weekend’s international rugby matches, and you’ll get a stake refund if the Handicap Tie is the winning selection. England are -6 Handicap for a price of Evens at SportingBet. There is also still time to get a free £50 bet when you open a new account. This is a great sign up bonus, worth double the regular amount of £25 until the end of November, so get in quick!

England are looking for the same side which brought them a record victory over Australia a fortnight ago, to bring an inspiring win over South Africa at Twickenham on Saturday. The match closes out the November series of games for England, and a victory would give England their third win in a row. After starting off with a defeat against the All Blacks, England responded well to beat Australia in emphatic fashion. Last weekend they had to grind out a result against Samoa, which they did with a 26-13 scoreline, after coach Martin Johnson had rang the changes. But Johnson now goes back to the same fifteen which put Australia to the sword. All of sudden there is more optimism surrounding England than there has been for some time. A win over the Springboks would really cap that off, but of course, the side which beat them in the last World Cup Final are never a push over. Back into the side come Lewis Moody, Mike Tindall moves back into the centre, while up front Tom Croft and Dan Cole regain their starting places. Scrum half Ben Youngs will need to find the same spark of creativity that he had against Australia, but lost against Samoa.

England have been more expansive, and Johnson is finally delivering on his word that England will produce more attacking rugby. A lot of the changes have to be down to the people that Johnson are putting on the pitch in the first place, players like Chris Ashton and fullback Ben Foden. England are no where near as being genuine World Cup 2011 challengers as the coaching staff and fans would really like, but this November has seen a significant shift forward for England. However, as displayed in the game against Samoa last weekend, there is one big difference between England and the best teams in the world. That is finishing power. Having that clinical ruthless edge to get over the try line with a higher percentage of attacks. That is still letting England down, but at least they are going forward with some kind of conviction. Maybe the rest will all fall into place.

South Africa are not as strong as they have been for some time now. This has been a tough year for them, completely being outplayed in the tri-nations, while suffering defeat at the hands of the Scottish last weekend. However, the SpringBoks always raise their game against England, and this will probably be the most physical and bruising encounter of the four matches England will have played this November. South Africa are currently on a six match winning streak against England. But England do have the momentum going into the match this time however, and will be favourite to beat an out of sort SpringBoks side. What the game will be though, is intense. South Africa are big side up front, and they are experienced. So they may not be on the best form, but they are still a handful. They still beat Ireland, who are arguably, still the best of the home nations. There will also be the factor of wounded pride. The SpringBoks will be wanting to shake that shock defeat against the Scots out of the system, and there will be no better way to forget it, than by beating England at Twickenham. South Africa go with Ruan Pienaar at scrum half for this one.

England will face a tougher battle up front than they did against New Zealand, Australia and Samoa. The South Africa pack is a wily one, and will use that area of the game to disrupt England. The SpringBoks have the power there to drive England back, and while England do have the more mobile and more dynamic pack, they may just have to double their physical efforts to secure and win ball against a rampaging back of SpringBoks. For your rugby betting, you would expect that if England can weather any early storm by the SpringBoks, who want to take their frustrations of last weekend’s result out on the England pack, then the home side should have enough to win. England have the confidence and that counts for a lot, but they need to contain the power that is in the South Africa pack. If England use quick ball like they did against Australia and start running the lines better, then there is no reason why England cannot finish with three wins out of four in these November tests. Look for Mark Cueto to end his barren spell with no tries, he has a good record against South Africa.

England:
Backs: B Foden, C Ashton, M Tindall, S Hape, M Cueto; T Flood, B Youngs
Forwards: A Sheridan, D Hartley, D Cole, C Lawes, T Palmer, T Croft, L Moody, N Easter.
Replacements: S Thompson, D Wilson, S Shaw, H Fourie, D Care, C Hodgson, M Banahan.

England v South Africa Stats
Games Played 31
England wins: 12
South Africa wins: 18
Draws: 1

Largest Points for England v SA: 53 (53-3)
Largest Points for South Africa v ENG: 58 (58-10)

Largest winning margin for England v SA: 53-3
Largest winning margin for South Africa v ENG: 58-10

Average points for England v SA: 15.48
Average points for South Africa v ENG: 20.6

Newlands, Cape Town
12.30pm GMT

Friday sees the third in the series of five One Day Internationals in the South Africa vs. England series. Surprisingly England have the upper hand at the moment, as they won the second game after a seven wicket win over the hosts. Paul Collingwood stepped up to the plate and knocked off a fine century, as well as getting in amongst the wickets which his medium pacers seeing him take 2-24 from six overs. The recovery from injury of James Anderson proved to be a big bonus for England, as he took 3 wickets, and Tim Bresnan helped his selection odds for the tour by taking Graham Smith as one of his two wickets.

There had been some concern over how the England bowling attack would possibly cope against the strength of the South African batting line-up. The game wasn’t a free flowing classic, more of two boxers feeling each other out in the first round of a bout, and the South African batsmen had that feel about them. Captain Andrew Strauss won the toss and set his side in the field, and the England bowlers started to make progress, limiting the Proteas to a mediocre score of just 250. More often than not though, England have failed to take advantage over any progress made in the first innings of One Day games, this time however it was a different story. The one area in which England knew they could attack, was by getting into their not-so-penetrative bowlers.

Paul Collingwood‘s century, backed up by opener Jonathan Trott’s 87 took the attack to the South African bowlers, an area of their game which was also causing concern for England supporters ahead of the series. England have not exactly embellished themselves with glory in the shorter formats of the game, and that is why this victory came as a little bit of a surprise, even though England had beaten South Africa in their previous encounter in the Champions Trophy. Now the challenge facing England is to build some momentum for the rest of the tour, and if they play competently, avoid any collapses and major rushes of blood to the head, taking a 2-0 lead in a five game series would be a huge confidence booster.

On the injury front, Stuart Broad has recovered from the injury which he picked up in England’s first warm up match, and he will return to the line-up. Spinner Graeme Swann is also on the brink of returning from injury, which will fortify the England attack over second spinner Adil Rashid who has yet to hit any kind of form in his young international career. South Africa will now come back with much gusto and have called up the experience of Herschelle Gibbs to try and inject some fire into the belly, after their re-worked batting order didn’t hit the ground running in the second One Day International.

Third One Day International (3/5)
South Africa to win: 4/7 at Totesport
England to win: 6/4 at Boylesports

Betting Advice: Believe it or not, England have won the last six ODI encounters between the two nations, and England showed something akin to controlled composure for the most part, in chasing down an average total set for them. There is still room for improvement, especially in the field, with several catching chances being dropped. Batting first in the day-nighter, should give some kind of advantage, and while the bookies still don’t have a lot of faith in England, it means there is a good chance to pick up some nice odds.
Top England Batsman: South African born Kevin Pietersen may just be coming back from injury, and he will be targeted, but he will hit out at some point and post a big score. After failing in the previous ODI, he will be fired up. Kevin Petersen – 11/2 at Totesport

Series Outright:
England – 7/4 at Bet365
Draw: 7/4 at Coral
South Africa – 5/2 at Totesport

Series Score:
Draw 2-2 – 13/8 at Blue Square
England 3-1 – 5/2 at Ladbrokes
South Africa 3-1 – 5/2 at BetFred
England 4-0 – 14/1 at Bet365

While England polished off their two opening One Day warm up fixtures, with consummate ease, their foray into the realms of Twenty20 did not go quite so well. This was England’s only Twenty20 warm up game ahead of the two-game series against South Africa starting on Friday, and it was nothing short of a disaster. England were dismissed for just 89, with Alistair Cook top scoring on 22. England were skittled out in just over seventeen over, leaving South Africa A to cruise to victory. The South Africans lost 6 wickets in the process of chasing down the poor total, but they still did it with about three overs remaining. This will have been a disappointing effort with the bat especially, with England’s only fit eleven players having to take part.

With Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Graham Onions and needing some time to recover from injuries, with Andrew Strauss not playing in the shortest format of the game, and with the squad awaiting the arrival of Kevin Pietersen after his injury woes, the team that took the field for the warm up match, sort of picked itself. That is no excuse for such a poor showing through, especially after looking very dominant in their two one day matches, beating the Eagles and the Warriors. While the Twenty20 matches against South Africa will pale into comparison of importance against the One Day Internationals and the Test Matches, the dismal showing means that England will need to pick themselves back up again.

Another injury worry occurred after the game with spinner Graeme Swann complaining, but there is good news that the Stuart Broad injury should clear up in time to get back to action against the Proteas when it matters most. This game is not what Twenty20 captain Paul Collingwood would have wanted to see, and now they just have three days to pull everything back together ahead of the first Twenty20 match. Meanwhile South Africa demolished Zimbabwe in their second warm-up One Day match, winning by a massive 212 runs. England will do well to even compete in the Twenty20 and One Day series against a South African side which is still regarded as being the best in the World at the moment, despite what happened at the Champions trophy, where they were beaten by England and Sri Lanka.

South Africa v England Twenty20 Series (two games)
Drawn Series: 6/5 at Totesport
South Africa: 6/4 at Ladbrokes
England: 5/1 at Totesport

South Africa v England ODI Series (five games)
South Africa: 2/5 at Totesport
England: 9/4 at Extrabet
Drawn Series: 37/2 at Betfair