KEY POINTS:
The final whistle of the second test between England and South Africa at Loftus Versfeld overnight will be a blessed relief to all concerned with this benighted tour. Misfortune has stalked England from the moment they landed a fortnight ago - and has pursued them to the last.
Captain Jason Robinson is the latest casualty of a trip that has eclipsed all records for mishap and calamity. Robinson has not recovered from the bruised knee he picked up during last weekend's 58-10 drubbing in Bloemfontein.
The captaincy passes to Jonny Wilkinson. If England were an ailing beast, it would have been put out of its misery long ago. There are seven changes, one positional, with Nick Easter switching from No 8 to blindside flanker, while Saracens wing Dan Scarbrough comes in for his second cap, four years after his first.
Jamie Noon is notionally on the other wing, though he will switch with Mathew Tait. One minor blip of good fortune has seen Harlequins full-back Mike Brown overcome the effects of the virus despite being ruled out of the tour in midweek.
England coach Brian Ashton had no qualms about asking Wilkinson to lead the side. He has only done the job once before, against Italy in 2003. Ashton said: "Leadership is shared around. We know there will be one or two dark moments and, if we only have one leader, we're in trouble."
Wilkinson is relishing the experience. "Life is not all about success," he said. "It's about testing yourself. It's too easy to be on the front foot all the time. You've got to do the hard healing. I'll remember these days with as much pride as when we won the World Cup."
Mike Ford, the England defence coach, was hoping to remove Wilkinson from front-line tackling duties. But Wilkinson, who received severe facial cuts last weekend, said: "You can't just step out of the way of a tackle. It's a part of the game I enjoy, which brings the best out of me."
Ashton bridled at the thought that some of his world-weary players might have one foot on the plane home. "If you'd been around the camp and seen them in action, you wouldn't be asking that," he said.
But England will have to bring more than a stiff upper-lip and bags of moral fibre to the game. Illness drained their resolve last weekend, - but so too did the relentlessness of the Springboks' approach.
South Africa's captain, John Smit, yesterday dismissed notions that the sheer size of the Springbok pack was the only factor that counted. "We've got some big cows and a lot of meat in this country, so physically it's in the genes," he said.
"But it's not just the size of the player, it's the size of his heart, too."
