Raffi Quirke's try
The pièce de résistance. It is Quirke's try, but Slade is the architect once more. From an off-the-top lineout from Lawes, the pass is a bullet to Slade at first-receiver. I cannot categorically say how early Slade sees the disconnect in the South African defensive line but he certainly takes advantage of it, making it wider to allow Marchant and Quirke to do the rest, as shown below.
South Africa's midfield defence looks like two pairs of defenders, not as one line of four. The set-up is Elton Jantjies and De Allende, then a gap that is too large for any midfield, then Am and Mapimpi together. De Allende and Am will be kicking themselves.
The pass from Quirke is out in front of Slade, who "slides" down the pass to get outside of his defender's channel. Jantjies is meant to have him, so Slade accelerates out of that channel and eyeballs De Allende. He looks directly into his eyes and says: "I am getting to you." Jantjies would probably have got to him - but De Allende is sucked in. He doesn't play the patience game that Slade did with Kolisi and he thinks: "It's time to smash Slade." Am and Mapimpi are slow to react because they are still remembering the earlier run off the same set-up I described in point three. Slade had run the same play and thrown the long pass to free Steward and Malins.
The South Africans hesitate to cover that threat and Marchant must have thought his Christmases had come early. He cuts the same line he must have run umpteen times in training for Quins and England, the one least likely to result in glory. But you keep running it perfectly in the hope that one day the pieces come together, and the accuracy of your team is such that it forces the opposition to fracture, splinter and lose shape. Marchant gallops clear, passes to Quirke on the inside and from no territory and no possession in the second half, England have a crucial seven-point try.
