But there was little time for the hosts to mount another attack, and England failed to gather the ball at the restart with South Africa holding their nerve to finish their northern hemisphere tour unbeaten, with England still to face New Zealand next weekend.

Last week Robshaw, who captained England to second in this year’s RBS 6 Nations, was criticised for opting against taking three kickable second-half penalties in their 20-14 defeat to Australia, the captain instead opting to go for touch each time.

And with his decision-making questioned yet again, Robshaw held his hands up.

“Unfortunately it was probably the wrong call,” Robshaw said.

“You have to judge every game as it comes and get a feel for it. That falls on my head. At the end of the day, I have to make those decisions.

“There were a couple of minutes on the clock and we thought we had enough time to get down there again and potentially get ourselves in drop-goal range.

“We didn’t take the restart and didn’t quite get in range again and it allowed them to close out the game.

“We were playing well, putting them under pressure, they were giving a lot of penalties away, but it probably wasn’t right. Unfortunately it just wasn’t to be.”