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'Worst since 2015': England compared to Lancaster era after 'being battered' by Boks
By Sam Smith
England limped to the end of their Autumn internationals with just one win from four tests as a 14-man South Africa coasted to a 27-13 win at Twickenham, heaping pressure on head coach Eddie Jones.
After a disastrous Six Nations in 2021 and a third-place finish in 2022, questions over Jones' rebuild of his 2019 World Cup final side persist.
After losing to Argentina to start the Autumn campaign, Jones' men rebounded to beat Japan, finished fast to draw with New Zealand before falling heavily to South Africa for a disappointing November.
A ten minute flurry against a 14-man All Blacks side last weekend saved what could have been a similar scoreline, coming back from 25-6 to tie the test. Outside of that, it has been a less than impressive showing from England.
The manner of the 27-13 defeat to the Springboks has English rugby fans concerned, with fans saying they are 'devoid of ideas' and will 'make up the numbers' at next year's World Cup.
They were outclassed in 'every area of the game' and struggled to put points together when the Springboks went down to 14 men for the final twenty minutes, repelled multiple times from the maul and turning the ball over on the goal line.
The loss was described as the 'worst since 2015' when Stuart Lancaster lead the side to a pool stage exit at their home World Cup, leading to a clean out and the initial beginning of Jones' era.
Despite morale falling to extremely low levels, head coach Eddie Jones is still optimistic improvements are being made by his side who are 'building a good base' for a World Cup run.
“On results, we are not happy but I feel like we are building a really good base to have a really good go at the World Cup, a really good base," he said.
"A number of young players got some great experience today. They will come back better players from that and we have got other players coming back to form, some of our more senior players and we are not far away."
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Latest Comments
The Saracens players are the ones who brought this habit into the England team and to be fair they rarely lose, they have a very strong winning culture. It is however very embarrassing when you suck.
Go to commentsYes but it will be very hard game for the ABs, Ireland will want some pay back and they are a fine team who can play the running dynamic game like we do. It was 3 tries all in the QF with some great rugby by both sides. We will probably see a good game and as you say not much in it. I am less worried than normal as I feel like our team is changing for the future at the moment, with the new coach, so we will get better over time. There is a lot of new talent coming through.
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