England revel in a welcome break from the battle

STEVE BALE

reports from Johannesburg

England's World Cup semi-finalists flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg yesterday but did not come down to earth until they had driven another 120 miles north-westwards to Sun City and were forced to contemplate the alarmingly imminent semi-final against New Zealand.

Sunday's game at Newlands will demand of England qualities of recuperation and endurance they have not shown since their progress to the 1991 final, when they won in France and Scotland on successive weekends. The idea is to pamper the squad into unwinding, before winding them up again when they return to Johannesburg tomorrow.

"The players are very aware of what we are going to come up against, the team probably playing better than anyone, so we're under no illusions," Will Carling, the captain, said yesterday as he blearily contemplated the night before.

England have, however, already taken heart from the Scots' performance in running the All Blacks to 48-30 in the quarter-final in Pretoria that followed England's epic 25-22 defeat of Australia. "Scotland did well to score that many points but, knowing New Zealand, they will have a good look and close the options.

"There are definitely areas in which to attack them and to do that we'll have to move the ball around and vary the game. But even Australia found that running the ball in your own half is a huge, huge risk in this competition. Territory is the main decider; how long you can stay in the opposition half, put pressure on, get penalties."

If this sounds negative, Carling could not care less. To have beaten the Wallabies is its own justification, though the team's reaction to the perfect parabola of Rob Andrew's winning drop goal - ecstatic in that frozen moment - swiftly turned to relief and then utter fatigue.

Most of the players, together with wives and girlfriends, had spent Sunday evening at Cape Town's fashionable Waterfront where, Carling noted, Andrew had walked across the harbour. Even so, it had not been the greatest of parties, memories of past failures - in particular losing the second Test against South Africa in 1994 as conclusively as they had won the first - already beginning to impinge as they contemplated the All Blacks.

"The guys were very tired," Carling said. "They tried to celebrate with style but some of them ran out of steam. We wanted to have a good night in terms of relaxing but we know what's coming up next week and we don't want to make the same mistake as last year. If you'd been in the team room when we got back to the hotel you'd have seen people lying around in shock and you would probably have thought we'd lost."

Hence the visit to Sun City, where the general theme is abandonment to the pursuit of pleasure. It is being paid for by the Rugby Football Union and, as a final act of reconciliation, was booked by none other than Dennis Easby, the RFU president who last month sacked and reinstated Carling.

The selection, certain to be unchanged, for Sunday will probably be made when the party comes back to Johannesburg, though until they move on to Cape Town on Friday they will be in the pleasant northern suburb of Sandton rather than Parktown, uncomfortably close to the centre of this crime-ridden city, where they passed last week.

Considering the intensity of the physical demands that have been placed on them, the players are in remarkably good shape, with Dean Richards the only casualty of the quarter-final, when he had six stitches in his forehead. Kyran Bracken's heel and ankle have now fully recovered, meaning a departure for home last night by Andy Gomarsall, who had flown from the England XV tour of Australia to provide temporary cover.

Meanwhile, the utopian idea that minds - not least Carling's - might be taken off the semi-final by disappearing to Sun City has already broken down, because the captain is not being allowed to think of anything else. "It is a measure of our task that we will have to play better than we did against the Australians - and that was quite a performance," he said. "It will have to be far more disciplined. We gave away too many penalties, stupid penalties. Also, our use of the ball will have to be better in certain areas of the pitch. My kicking duel with Campese wasn't particularly intelligent."

All of which, so Carling assures us, will be done. The thought that, after one momentous victory, they may undergo the same fate as the last time they were in South Africa has not entered his head. "It may sound crazy but if it was Australia again next week it would be very different. It's a very English thing: it's not in our character to beat a side twice."