Robinson remains unshakeable on England's judgement day

Win or lose at Twickenham this afternoon, the Springbok coach, Jake White, will be summoned to a meeting of the presidents' council of the South African Rugby Union - a sporting star chamber if ever there was one - to explain his team's results, or lack of them, over the past few months. Andy Robinson, on the other hand, can expect a slightly different kind of summons if things go wrong today. Should his England side lose in front of their home crowd in the fourth and final international of a fraught and fractious autumn campaign, or even fail to win well, his enemies will have him up before the magistrates on a charge of crimes against rugby.

The head coach is under the hammer, despite last weekend's narrow squeak of a victory over the Boks. He knows it, too. The shellacking he has received in the public prints, from the great Martin Johnson down, since the defeat by Argentina a fortnight ago has left him in no doubt as to the vulnerability of his position. Yet he continues to "front up", to borrow one of his favourite phrases. His self-belief appears inexhaustible, his optimism unlimited, his skin thicker than that of the average rhinoceros.

He may or may not turn out to be correct in this - the forthcoming debrief into the events of recent weeks will be inquisitorial in the extreme - but Robinson clearly feels he has a better than even chance of making it through to the 2007 World Cup and beyond. Yesterday, he was brisk and businesslike in promoting the theory that England would play with more intelligence than they displayed in the middle section of last week's game and show clear signs of "moving up a level". What was more, he seemed to relish the prospect of discussing his future with his employers.

"I know what I'm about," he said. "I have honest, open, frank discussions with the Rugby Football Union, and I have them regularly. I don't hide away from things and I've always been up-front with the chief executive and the management board. As far as I'm concerned, the players have been exceptional over the last four weeks, especially those who came into the autumn series off the back of two hard European fixtures, and the people working together to manage the side have been top-drawer. We have the means to play in different ways, so if this turns out to be a wet-weather Test we'll deal with it. Is the performance as important as the result this time? Look, I played in many single-point victories in my career. It's how winning teams are built."

A half-decent performance this afternoon could indeed send England onwards and upwards. Their opening two Six Nations games in February are against Scotland and Italy, both at Twickenham and both eminently winnable. Four victories on the bounce would put the world champions in high good humour for their trip to Dublin, where the Irish will be scarcely more familiar with the temporary Croke Park venue than their opponents. The margins are terribly small in this game, as Robinson is fond of pointing out, so it does not require any great leap of faith to imagine England being on a roll come the spring.

Certainly, this was the way Martin Corry was seeing it yesterday. The captain, bad-mouthed and lambasted in precisely the same way as his coach, was equally buoyant about life, in contrast to his dark and dangerous mood seven days previously. "The key thing, the most pleasing thing, about last week's victory was that we found a way back from 18-13 and 21-13 down with time running out," he said. "I've been involved in similar situations when people have just gone off and played to their own agendas. That didn't happen and as a result of us fighting all the way to the final whistle, we've become really close. In terms of team spirit, what happened was absolutely crucial."

England face a different South African challenge today. For the first time since the autumn of 2005, when Eddie Jones brought his Wallabies to Twickenham in the knowledge that defeat could cost him his job, the opposition need a victory every bit as badly as Robinson and company. Such desperation can transform the dynamics of a contest - certainly the likes of Jean de Villiers, so impressive last week despite his penchant for the significant faux pas, and John Smit, the Bokke captain, have all the motivation they need to deliver a decisive performance today.

So, too, do the two flankers, Juan Smith and Kabamba Floors, neither of whom featured in the opening match. Smith is a hard case, and is one of the men capable of carrying the fight to the opposition in traditional Springbok style. Floors, who makes his debut after a belated call-up from the high veld, is something entirely out of left field - a miniscule bundle of revved-up energy, capable of playing seven-a-side rugby in a game of 15s. Together, they will pose the English back row a whole new set of problems, many of them more complex than those presented by the likes of Pierre Spies and Jacques Cronje, who started last week's game.

"It isn't about one person dealing with a player like Floors," said Robinson, his brow furrowing and his colour rising. "It's about the whole team dealing with him." Welcome to Test rugby, Kabamba.

On the subject of welcomes, Phil Vickery's long-awaited return to the starting line-up is a cause for celebration, even if he has been cast in the unfamiliar role of loose-head prop. If the big West Countryman can handle the set-piece threat posed by B J Botha, who just may provide a solution to the long-term issues surrounding the Bokke scrum, England will be in the happy position of having a fresh world-class option of their own. If Steve Thompson returns to optimum form at hooker and Matt Stevens, pray God, recovers full fitness after a truly horrible shoulder injury, the red rose pack could arrive at the World Cup with the best tight unit in the tournament. And as they showed during the last one, such units are worth their weight in trophies.

All this is in the future, however, and as it is plainly true that certain people will not have a future if the wheels come off today, there is no sense in anyone getting ahead of himself. For the sake of continuity, if nothing else, today's result is the be-all and end-all. Defeat will set the hounds of hell running once again, even faster than in the immediate aftermath of the calamity against the Pumas, and as English rugby knows from bitter experience, the decision-makers at the RFU are not great at keeping their cool, holding their nerve and steering clear of the panic button.

They did it once, in fairness to them - after the 1999 World Cup, when all but a few right-thinking folk called for Clive Woodward's head on a platter. Woodward stayed, and the rest is history. Will Robinson be given anything like the same latitude? If England go down here, the odds are against it.