Double reigning world champions South Africa kicked off their campaign rugby’s new Nations Championship with a convincing 45-21 win over England to prove that they remain the team to beat.The Springboks were in Test action for the first time this year but Rassie Erasmus’ side barely missed a beat, despite both Siya Kolisi and Eben Etzebeth being ruled out just before kick-off, as they raced into a 17-0 lead inside 13 minutes at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, with Thomas du Toit, Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse all going over.To their credit, Steve Borthwick’s side hit back with scores from Ellis Genge and George Martin just before half-time but the hosts pulled away after the break, with Grant Williams, Jesse Kriel, Malcolm Marx and Ben-Jason Dixon all scoring to lay down an early marker in the cross-hemisphere competition.England showed flashes of promising play but, off the back of their worst-ever Six Nations, their losing streak extended to five matches and next week’s clash with Fiji at Everton now looms awfully large for the Borthwick project.Relive all the action from the Nations Championship clash with our live blog below:Harry Latham-Coyle4 July 2026 19:30Jamie George 'gutted'"I am gutted,” Jamie George tells the BBC. “There were times when we posed some really big questions to the Springboks, and we showed some great character to come back after a poor first 15 minutes."We need to get out of the cycle of playing the game that the Springboks want to play."We knew what was coming and came out with a lot of passion and energy. Lessons to learn in terms of our discipline."Ultimately, it is about putting our game onto the field. We did that in parts."(AP)Harry Latham-Coyle4 July 2026 19:20Next up...Here’s what is on deck next for these two:Fiji vs England (2.10pm BST, Liverpool)South Africa vs Scotland (4.40pm BST, Pretoria)Harry Latham-Coyle4 July 2026 19:05Here's Pieter-Steph du Toit, stand-in Springboks skipper“It was a tough game for us. That’s the thing about England – you always know that they are going to come back and never stop fighting. We had to stick to our plans. Unfortunately we lost a bit of control in the second half of the first half, but at the end of the game, we made ourselves proud.“Being at lock again was quite tough. But pulling on a Springboks jersey is always a massive honour. The South African fans are the best. Hopefully we can make them crowd in the rest of the season.”Harry Latham-Coyle4 July 2026 18:55England's discipline costly?13 penalties to six for England – did that prove costly? One might argue that a lot of those came from pressure, and a couple from scrums, but they didn’t start the second half with the cleanliness they probably had to.Two yellow cards, too – the Tommy Freeman and Guy Pepper incidents were unfortunate, but it is a persistent problem.George Martin’s try was good, mind.(AP)Harry Latham-Coyle4 July 2026 18:45Damian de Allende reacts to South Africa's win“It was a tough old Test match. We started really well but we know how good the English team are, and we knew they’d come back. The way we started the second half was excellent and a great reaction from the players coming out of the sheds.“I thought we were very accurate in the beginning, but a little bit of ill-discipline came in and we let them take momentum. We’ll rest up and look forward to next week."Harry Latham-Coyle4 July 2026 18:41FT: South Africa 45-21 EnglandThat result leaves England bottom of the Nations Championship Northern Hemisphere table. For whatever that is worth. Scotland play Argentina later, of course.Harry Latham-Coyle4 July 2026 18:39FT: South Africa 45-21 EnglandAbout as expected, really – England stuck in the fight for a while but were eventually blown away. Steve Borthwick will be pleased with the spirit his side showed in that second quarter after a horror start, but it never felt like they had enough.Harry Latham-Coyle4 July 2026 18:37FULL TIME: South Africa 45-21 England(AP)Harry Latham-Coyle4 July 2026 18:34South Africa 45-21 England, 81 minutesEngland are still down to 13 men as South Africa set off again in search of a half-century. Jesse Kriel is there! But that looked suspiciously like a knock-on from Malcolm Marx to get it to him...confirmed as much by the TMO. Light relief for a bruised England – that’ll be that!Harry Latham-Coyle4 July 2026 18:32