The talk in English rugby of late has been how they've finally embraced the modern game in all its high-octane glory. All Victor Matfield sees is the old England his team used to lose to.

"They're playing very much the same style they played back in 2003, where they keep their forwards in their channels, then make decisions about where they want to go," says the Springbok captain. "It's pretty much the same way they played under [Clive] Woodward.

"I think Martin Johnson has taken a lot out of when he played and when they were successful, so he's been trying to implement that over the last few years."

While most have been seduced by England's sudden ability to blitz the opposition from all areas of the park - including from behind their own tryline against Australia - Matfield is more impressed with how they have begun to play the ball out wide.

"They're playing a great style of rugby. They keep the ball in hand and they've got a lot of width in their game," he says. "Although they've got width, they run very hard, which gets them forward momentum to be able to use that width.

"It'll be important for us to dominate the contact points and stop them getting momentum."

Matfield reckons another back-to-basics area Johnson has sorted out is the lineout: "Their lineout's been functioning very well. In a guy like [Tom] Croft they've got a loose forward who's a good lineout forward."

Disconcertingly, all this adds up to an England side that Matfield was starting to forget existed - one that regularly beat the Boks.

"I played for years against them at the beginning of my career and we never won," he says. "I played my first five games against them and lost them all at Twickenham.

"Then we had a good period around the World Cup when things went well. Now things are going to be tough again."

The one unknown for the Boks is in the centre, where Johnson has picked behemoths in Mike Tindall and Shontayne Hape.

"I think they've combined well with the experience of Tindall and the relative youth of Hape," says Bok centre Jean de Villiers. "They're quite physical and have the ability to take the ball wide, so it'll be a tough challenge for us.

"But I'll phone my mate Butch James at Bath and get a little more info about Shontayne."

Well, Google says the Bath centre is a former teammate of Sonny Bill Williams in the New Zealand rugby league team.

Formerly with the Bradford Bulls, Hape (pronounced Har'pay) is a typical league convert at 1.91m tall and 104kg.

Married to English dancer Liana, - who has worked with Shaggy, Pink and Natalie Imbruglia - the 28-year-old likes to DJ in his spare time, under the stage name DJ Shape. Apparently his favourite singers are Jay-Z and Kanye West.

Same old England? Not quite.

• Xabanisa is on tour with the Springboks courtesy of British Airways