Fleck says there is no holding back

Fleck's relish for a scrap left no doubt that Scott Gibbs' reputation, earned on the Lions tour of South Africa three years earlier, had gone before him. The 25-year-old from Cape Town clearly intends bringing more of the same abrasive edge to the midfield duel on Saturday.

'We had to go in with attitude and get that old Springbok spirit back,' he added. 'Maybe we went a bit over the top now and again but against people like Gibbs you have to climb in otherwise you come off second-best. We need to regain that bit of arrogance which all the top teams possess.'

Despite their transitional state between coaches towards the end of a fraught year, the Springboks know only too well that the vast majority of their public will take some placating should they lose to England again.

A third such defeat in four matches, with only a fortuitous win in Pretoria interrupting the sequence, would take some explaining.

'England are probably the tough-st side to play and they've just beaten Australia,' said Fleck. 'Their defence is outstanding, probably the best. They're definitely in the top two in the world, whereas our team are slowly coming together after a tough year. We're the underdogs but we're good enough to give them a tough game and run it very close.'

Fleck is one of only five survivors from the team which put England out of their World Cup misery in Paris 13 months ago. Percy Montgomery, Joost van der Westhuizen, Mark Andrews and Andre Venter have stood the test of time but there are fears that a sixth survivor, left wing Pieter Rossouw, will be forced to withdraw today because of hamstring trouble.

The Springbok style has changed somewhat since Jannie de Beer drilled his five drop-goals in the 44-21 win in France. 'We played safe rugby that day in Paris by just making sure we gave Jannie the ball to kick the goals,' said Fleck. 'Now we want to play more rugby, to become one of the lead-ers of a high-risk game. You'll see a different South Africa team on Saturday, with the backs running.

'Harry Viljoen, the new coach, has brought in a lot of new ideas. We're trying new things but we know South Africa expects its rugby team to win. The public back home can be very unforgiving in their refusal to accept defeat.

'We really felt the pressure in that respect against New Zealand in the Tri-Nations at Ellis Park. If we'd lost that game, it would have been regarded at home as a catastrophe. Maybe now the fans are beginning to realise that we cannot win every single game.'

In losing four on the trot last summer, the consequences granted Van der Westhuizen a new lease of international life. Dropped after the drawn home series against England, the Republic's most-capped scrum half saw no future under the old regime which ended in September with Mallett's resignation.

It is no coincidence that Van der Westhuizen, fully recovered from a serious knee injury, should be thriving again under Viljoen, a former Transvaal scrum half whose specialist team includes two former Springbok coaches, Andre Markgraaf and Ian McIntosh.

'Under the game-plan which Mallett imposed, the scrum half was just a link,' said Van der West-huizen. 'Nobody worried about the scrum half because all he did was pass the ball. That took away some of my strike power.

'With Mallett getting rid of the senior players, the signs for me weren't good. I had five offers to go overseas, including the UK, but I decided to stay and try to get on this tour.'

He is also still scoring tries in the mould of his boyhood inspiration, Gareth Edwards, typical close-range strikes against Ireland and Wales in successive weeks raising his Test tally to 32, 12 more than his Welsh idol.