Sheridan ruled out of Boks game

The long-running saga of Andrew Sheridan's bull neck finally drew to a close yesterday when Dr Mike Bundy, the England team's resident medic, confirmed that the loose-head prop from Sale would miss tomorrow's meeting with South Africa, the world champions, at Twickenham. Tim Payne, of Wasps, who last played for his country against the All Blacks in Christchurch during the summer – and played rather well, despite the story told on the scoreboard – will start the game, with Matt Stevens, of Bath, staying on the replacements' bench.

It was not a glorious episode for the England hierarchy. Martin Johnson, the manager, had insisted on Tuesday that everyone in the starting line-up was "ready to go", even though it quickly emerged that Sheridan was not taking anything like a full part in training. As late as yesterday lunchtime, a mere 50 hours before kick-off, the back-room staff were sticking to the party line and ruling Sheridan more in than out.

"This is an autumn Test series in which we're playing the three leading sides in the world," said Graham Rowntree, the scrum coach. "Guys get banged up and it's a fact of life that they can't do much until the middle of the week. We're happy with what Andrew has done so far." But Steve Borthwick, the captain, let the cat out of the bag before the official announcement. Asked whether it would be fair to assume that England's nominated forward unit had not scrummaged together as an eight at any point since last Saturday's heavy defeat by Australia, he responded with a silence that spoke volumes.

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South Africa have problems of their own in the front-row department, to the extent that Jannie du Plessis, flown in as an emergency replacement for the stricken Gurthro Steenkamp, has been fast-tracked straight into the starting line-up. The tourists have been forced into a second change at the sharp end as a result of an injury to Juan Smith, the Free State forward who performed so impressively in last week's narrow victory over Scotland at Murrayfield. Danie Rossouw, a member of the World Cup-winning loose trio, will take over on the blind-side flank.

However, it is reasonable to suggest that the Boks can absorb the loss of Steenkamp more readily than England can do without Sheridan, despite his inconsistent form. "Andrew is a very important player for us," Borthwick agreed, and as England are still licking their wounds after being outshoved and outthought by a Wallaby unit rated as something less than brilliant, they need all the important players they can get.

"We're not dodging away from the fact that a couple of the scrums against Australia were embarrassing," said Rowntree candidly. Would he accept that the Wallabies, with their clever delaying tactics, tricks and ruses, had exposed England's scrummagers in all their naivety? "I'm not here to coach cynicism; I'm here to coach the proper scrummaging process," he replied. "Yes, we switch off sometimes, but I don't believe that means we have players who don't think. That would be the wrong thing to allege."

One of Rowntree's coaching colleagues, the attack strategist Brian Smith, joined in with a verbal bullet at last week's referee, Marius Jonker of South Africa. "We'd spent a good deal of time working on attacking moves from the set-pieces," he said. "I wanted to see us play off clean scrum ball, but for that to happen, you need a referee who will allow a proper contest." With that off his chest, he addressed another of England's failings. "Since the Wallaby game, we've been concentrating more on attacking from broken-field situations. I'd give us seven out of 10 in terms of our power game, but we're not yet on the scoreboard when it comes to playing with width. We can't afford to be predictable, because teams work you out so quickly nowadays. It's up to us to find more than one way of playing."

Among Smith's most urgent concerns is to get the Wasps contingent, which now stands at eight in the starting line-up with a ninth on the bench, performing at international pitch. Last but one in the Premiership, the London club have had a terrible time of it this season. To select so many players from a struggling side against the world champions is one of the bigger leaps of faith taken by the England selectors in recent memory.

Happily, one of the non-Wasps players, the in-form full-back Delon Armitage,is fit after injuring an ankle in training on Tuesday.

England (Saturday 23 November, Twickenham) D Armitage (London Irish); P Sackey (Wasps), J Noon (Newcastle), R Flutey (Wasps), U Monye (Harlequins); D Cipriani (Wasps), D Care (Harlequins); T Payne (Wasps), L Mears (Bath), P Vickery (Wasps), S Borthwick (Saracens, capt), T Palmer (Wasps), J Haskell (Wasps), T Rees (Wasps), N Easter (Harlequins). Replacements: D Hartley (Northampton), M Stevens (Bath), S Shaw (Wasps), T Croft (Leicester), J Crane (Leicester), H Ellis (Leicester), T Flood (Leicester).

South Africa C Jantjes; J P Pietersen, A Jacobs, J de Villiers, B Habana; R Pienaar, R Januaries; P Spies, D Rossouw, S Burger, V Matfield, B Botha, J du Plessis, J Smit (capt), B Mtawarira. Replacements: C Ralepelle, B Mujati, A Bekker, R Kankowski, H Brussow, F Steyn, J Fourie.