England's faltering build-up to the 2015 World Cup continued after South Africa inflicted a pressure-building fifth successive defeat on Stuart Lancaster's team.
A rain-soaked Twickenham was struck by a local power outage just hours before kick-off, and the lights dimmed on England's autumn campaign with the Springboks prevailing 31-28 seven days after New Zealand had departed London as convincing winners.
The tables appeared to have turned in the space of three second-half minutes when the Red Rose, reeling from Cobus Reinach's dynamic try, replied with bulldozing touch downs by David Wilson and Ben Morgan that were founded on forward power.
South Africa responded almost immediately through Schalk Burger and when hooker Dylan Hartley was sin-binned for stamping, the balance of power had shifted back to the tourists.
A nerve-jangling second-half continued to cause palpitations as England sought the points that would deliver the first victory over the Springboks of Lancaster's reign as head coach.
But it was South Africa who landed the knockout blow through a drop-goal from flyhalf, Pat Lambie with Brad Barritt's 79th-minute try arriving too late to turn the tide once again.
England's outstanding set- piece produced possession throughout, but this was wasted amid a creeping error count that disfigured their gameplan and conceded easy points to opponents ranked second best in the world, but who performed short of that level.
The result extended South Africa's ominous record in the fixture to 11 victories in 12 Tests, a run interrupted only by a 14-14 draw in 2012.
Unless England rescue some meaning from their autumn when they face Australia, who are their Group A rivals at next year's World Cup, the decision to award Lancaster and his assistants extended contracts until 2020 will look hasty.
Lancaster, though, insists there is no need to panic despite his team's fifth consecutive defeat.
"We'll not panic or lose our nerve and we'll not deviate from the course we're on," he said. "We've played the top two sides in the world now and that's the benchmark for us.
"We've never said we're the finished article. When we took the roles in 2012 we knew we had to take a young group of players through some tough environments.
"Playing New Zealand first up last week was always going to be tough, but we're not going to sit here and feel sorry for ourselves.
"I believe in the coaches, I believe in the players and I believe in what we're doing.
"It hurts to lose and to lose at Twickenham, but the hurt can be turned into a positive. It's about learning who can and cannot deliver in 11 months' time because that's when it really does matter."
England were made to pay for a number of sloppy errors throughout the contest and a failure to adapt to the wet conditions.
Lancaster added: "It was one of those days when territory was going to be important and the South Africans benefited from our errors rather than constructing too much themselves.
"That's what we need to improve on. We need to be smarter if we're going to beat the top sides in the world as has been shown in the last two games."
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