Chris Robshaw admits South Africa defeat is 'tough to take' as England are forced to play catch up
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England captain Chris Robshaw bemoaned the fact his side had to play catch up as they slumped to a fifth defeat on the bounce, losing 31-28 to South Africa at Twickenham.
The Springboks seized control early on, with tries from Jan Serfontein and Cobus Reinach giving them a 20-6 lead just after the interval.
Although Robshaw's pack muscled England back into the contest with tries from David Wilson and Ben Morgan off the back of driving mauls, South Africa kept them at arm's length with a touchdown from Schalk Burger before Brad Barritt closed the gap in the dying moments.
"I think we were a bit reactive today, we allowed them to get ahead of us and then we had to play catch up," he told Sky Sports 1.
"We had a brilliant patch out there where we got two driving mauls going but unfortunately we allowed them to get their driving maul going too.
England v South Africa - player ratings
"It's tough to take, especially at home, but we'll have to work hard and come back next week."
After the 3-0 series whitewash in New Zealand in the summer and the 24-21 defeat to the All Blacks last week it now means they have suffered a fifth successive defeat for the first time since 2006 - which was also the last year they managed to beat South Africa, who are now unbeaten in 12 matches against England.
Like last week against the All Blacks England's set piece worked well, with two tries coming from lineouts, and the scrum was also strong, but Robshaw just feels his side are falling just short of what they are capable of.
"We are probably not doing ourselves justice. We all know the way we train and the way we want to play and we haven't put it on the pitch as well as we would have liked," he added.
