England - 25 Sth Africa - 6 If England needed a reality check after their significance-laden victory over South Africa, it has come with distressing haste.

This team are battle-hardened enough to cope with almost anything, but must now do without their influential centre Will Greenwood, who has flown home on compassionate grounds and will be absent for at least a week, if not considerably longer.

Greenwood has returned to Britian to be with his wife, who is experiencing difficulties with her second pregnancy. The couple lost their first child, Freddie, who was born prematurely last year, and Caro Greenwood, who is 21 weeks pregnant, is currently in hospital in London where her husband - England's try-scorer on Saturday - will be reunited with her today.

At such moments even a momentous win over the Springboks becomes a trivial footnote, and Clive Woodward, England's coach, stressed it is entirely Greenwood's decision as to when he rejoins the squad.

"It's obviously a concern to him and it's a concern to everybody," said Woodward, revealing Greenwood, who is 31 today, had kept the news from his team-mates for most of the week before Saturday's pivotal fixture. "He didn't want the team worrying about him, even though this is a traumatic thing he's going through.

"What he did last night was unbelievable, really," Woodward added. "He wanted to play because he knew how big it was for the team. If there had been any seriously bad news he would have been on the first plane, but Caro was happy for him to stay until Sunday. The plan is for him to be back in just over a week and we hope that happens."

No replacement will be summoned and, with games against Samoa and Uruguay offering Woodward the option of rotating his squad, Greenwood's absence can be covered initially. Were England's most creative back to remain at home for more than a fortnight, however, the haze of optimism encouraged by this result would begin to evaporate.

While they await further bulletins, England can at least reflect that performing modestly and winning is a handy trick to master at this stage of a World Cup. If they had gone out, played like gods and stuck 50 points on the Springboks, some of their younger players might not have fully appreciated how hard it is to win this sort of tournament. After a distinctly sticky first half against a Bok side playing human pinball, they are now under no illusions.

Had Louis Koen not missed four penalties and Lewis Moody failed to charge down the fly-half's kick to set up Greenwood's calm hack-and-gather in the 62nd minute, the tension would have been even greater. As it was you could almost hear the sound of travel itineraries being revised until, finally, a mix of hard graft, crushing defence and experience allowed England's fans to contemplate a quarter-final in Brisbane against either Wales or Italy, followed by a potential semi-final with France.

In the circumstances, it is probably also better to gloss over Greenwood's first-half aberration, when he caught a missed Koen penalty but omitted to touch it down in-goal before throwing it upfield for the 22-metre drop-out. Luckily for him, the barely-fit Kyran Bracken, who had trouble bending down to pull on his socks in the morning but lasted a full 80 minutes, managed to recapture possession at the resultant five-metre scrum and foiled the Springboks' best chance of a try. Wilkinson then twisted the knife with two drop-goals which, given how Jannie de Beer kicked England out of the 1999 World Cup, was a classic case of the boot being on the other foot.

Woodward described it as a victory of "sheer physicality, sheer guts and sheer determination" suggesting South Africa had the artillery up-front to beat New Zealand in the quarter-finals. "I don't think the All Blacks are setting this tournament alight at the moment," he ventured."We don't fear playing the All Blacks and neither should South Africa." Equally, he is convinced England will get better. "That was probably bigger than most other games we're going to play at this World Cup. I don't care how we did it, we had to win. If we'd lost, the whole ceiling would have come down. But I think we'll get better game by game."

Woodward will select a strong team to face Samoa on Sunday, with Richard Hill and Matt Dawson both available after their recent hamstring troubles. England have not conceded a try yet and they do not want to start now.

ENGLAND: Lewsey; Robinson, Tindall (Luger 71), Greenwood, Cohen; Wilkinson, Bracken; Woodman (Leonard 73), Thompson, Vickery, Johnson (capt), Kay, Moody, Back, Dallaglio.

SOUTH AFRICA: Van der Westhuyzen; Willemse, Muller, Barry, Delport; Koen (Hougaard 68), Van der Westhuizen; Bezuidenhout, Coetzee (Smit 57), Bands (Sephaka 68), Botha, Matfield, Krige (captain), Van Niekerk, Smith.

Referee: P Marshall (Australia).

Guardian Service