It is time the players got angry about repeating the same errors

England need to show ruthless honesty when confronting Saturday’s worrying collapse

England No 8 Billy Vunipola did not seem too down during his post-match interview. His summary of the game was essentially correct – England played very well at the beginning of the game and towards the end; it was just the middle bit that let them down.

Let’s hope Vunipola was just toeing the party line in public because if this represents the team’s genuine attitude to the loss, they are in trouble.

The bit in the middle was where England, having been 24-3 up, threw away a three-converted-try advantage by losing the next 52 minutes 36-8. They also had a man yellow-carded and ultimately lost 42–39.

Let’s try and be balanced about this. For part of the game, England played fluently and creatively and scored three good tries. The game was exciting; England might even have snatched a win had they not lost an attacking line-out late in the match. They only just lost at altitude and at the spiritual home of South African rugby.

However, this is a very inexperienced Springbok team with a new captain and coach. If England will get better, so will the Boks. Also, if your stated aim is, rightly, to be the best in the world, is that good enough? Do the best sides lose, having forged such an early advantage? No, they do not; they close games out.

I would like to see someone from the England camp get angry about these failures. I do not care whether it is the right PR move or what the media or other countries’ fans think or say about it. The England players should be angry about losing this way, and their supporters know it is a more genuine emotion. Nobody wants lunatic ranting but nor do they expect, or trust, platitudinous expressions.

If Eddie Jones and his players want to work out what went wrong and why, they must be ruthlessly honest. Why did they concede so many tries down the narrow side, and why was this not picked up during the game? Why was the Springbok scrum-half Faf de Klerk able to get so much room around the breakdown? Why did England get so little ball between the 20th and 70th minutes?

If you habitually yield twice as many penalties as your opponents, you will not beat good teams

Why did their line speed drop off alarmingly? Why did they end up playing with two No8s in the back row and a No6 in the second row?

And, for the umpteenth time – why the ---- do they keep giving so many penalties away?

Some England fans and players seem to think they do not get fair calls from referees, but they should ask this: when this happens continually, and with a variety of referees from both hemispheres, what is the common denominator?

Jones accepted responsibility for this by saying that he picks the players. He must now not pick serial offenders. If you habitually yield twice as many penalties as your opponents, you will not beat good teams. Jones needs to act and be open about it. I don’t care what is said to the outside world about learning lessons and improving, the players are patently not able or willing to sort this out themselves.

The reasons for England’s reversal of fortune are interlinked. One or two of the following can be managed and might not be costly, but when defensive intensity and organisation drop, you give away stupid penalties, you fail to do simple things like win your own line-outs, you turn over ball in contact or you do not make touch, you find yourself on the back foot.

Against a team with good footballers, and South Africa have these, you concede tries. Even the best sides commit these errors, but they do not do them all consecutively, and they do not keep on doing them.

England’s success is and always has been based on forward dominance and control. To some extent, this is true for every team but with England especially so. At the moment, England’s eight would be ranked around eighth in the world as they are not dominant in the scrum and they either cannot or do not use the driving maul as well as some tier-two teams. The return of Billy Vunipola helped the pack’s carrying into contact but the laboured way in which England cleared the breakdown shows an awful lot of work is still needed.

The weekend allowed us to see nearly all the world’s top teams as northern-hemisphere touring sides played southern hosts.

England’s world ranking is based on a remarkable run of wins at the start of Jones’s tenure. Presently, they are not performing much beyond World Cup quarterfinalists.

The one thing, more than any other, that will improve matters is discipline and – at the risk of repetition – action, not talk, must come from Jones over this.