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England hint at Maro Itoje positional switch versus the Springboks
By PA
Maro Itoje has insisted that the climax to the autumn against South Africa can not come soon enough as England have reacted to their dramatic draw with New Zealand by targeting the complete performance. Eddie Jones’ team fought back from a 19-point deficit to draw 25-25 with the All Blacks at Twickenham on Saturday, a stunning late salvo of tries making up for a passive first half.
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Frustrated that England only clicked once the All Blacks had built a near-assailable lead, Itoje has demanded that they are relentless in their pursuit of the world champion Springboks. “Playing South Africa at Twickenham – I’m really looking forward to it. I only wish the game is a little bit sooner because we left a lot out there against New Zealand,” he said.
“While the second half was a bit more how we want to play, next week is an opportunity to hopefully play how we want to play for the full 80 minutes. We have an incredible amount of potential in this team, we just need to unlock it. We are spending more and more time together and are becoming more cohesive, so hopefully it will come.
“I’m proud that we stuck at it and we didn’t go away and proud that we played some great rugby towards the end of that game, but we need to play like that for the whole game. You never want to be too happy with a draw, but it’s better than losing. Hopefully, it will put us in better stead for South Africa who will be a great challenge.
“South Africa haven’t changed the way they play since their first game in international rugby! Strong set-piece, strong kicking game, strong defence.”
Jones is set to shelve the experiment of playing specialist number eights Sam Simmonds and Billy Vunipola together in the back row in order to strengthen their lineout against South Africa. The England head coach has highlighted the importance of having options in the set-piece in anticipation of the Springboks’ aerial assault, pointing to Itoje replacing Simmonds at blindside flanker and Dave Ribbans starting at lock.
“We probably need three jumpers against South Africa. It’s going to be a higher kicking game so we will have a look at that,” Jones said. “We were a bit disappointed early on against New Zealand about the effectiveness of our ruck defence. Ardie Savea we handled pretty well. Tom Curry and Sam Simmonds defensively were good and that is the best Test match I’ve seen Billy Vunipola play since 2019.”
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Jones continued to back the on-field decision of Marcus Smith to kick the ball dead in overtime rather than launch a do-or-die assault in the hope of snatching victory. Former England stars Will Greenwood and Mike Brown, as well as World Cup-winning coach Clive Woodward, have all criticised the call for lacking ambition.
“It’s easy to make a decision on the sideline but the players understood that (referee) Mathieu Raynal was penalising very heavily the attacking ruck,” Jones said. “He has got an exceptionally high penalty count against the attacking ruck so when we didn’t get a go-forward kick reception the players made the decision to not put any more money on the table, pick up and leave. I don’t have any qualms with the decision they made.”
What would all these critics have said if England played on and conceded a penalty which lost them the game?
You can bet that Woodward would have criticised the decision because he criticises everything to do with Eddie Jones.
We'd been in the ascendency for 7-8 minutes and NZ were 1 player down. There is always risk, but I would have liked to see England have a go. It wouldn't matter if we lost the game, it's a glorified friendly, but it's good practice to have to push yourself in the last minute to find a winner.