England are spluttering and squad is splintered
Eddie Jones is not for turning. No matter that England were once again blowing hard on the Highveld and fell prey to poor discipline, both issues that are in the remit of a head coach to tend to, Jones was defiant, prickly even, in fielding questions that he should reconsider his methods or his position.
England have returned to their training base at sea level in Durban, a suitable enough location given that the third-test dead rubber is in Cape Town. Perhaps this build-up will enable them to sustain their rattling start and not fade away, as they have done in the two Tests at high altitude.
Three tries at Ellis Park within the first quarter, two here within 13 minutes, through wings Mike Brown and Jonny May, yet nothing thereafter. In Johannesburg, there was a late rally. In Bloemfontein there was not even the scant consolation of raging against the dying light. England did not score another point in the remaining 67 minutes.
It is perfectly legitimate to wonder if England ran out of puff because they had not acclimatised properly. The England sports scientists say not. The naked eye says they did.
No matter. Retrospective proof or self-justification is no longer relevant. The series has been lost and that is a significant stain on a well-resourced England team who had targeted this trip as the dress rehearsal for life on the road in the Rugby World Cup in Japan in 15 months’ time.
Even a win in Cape Town will be pretty meaningless, given that the Springboks intend to experiment with their line-up. England ought not to seek any crumbs of comfort at Newlands. The cupboard is bare in that regard. The series was all that mattered.
There is little doubt England are a splintered entity, railing against all those outside the camp, be it the media to tunnel incidents following both Tests. It may be a stretch to link directly a lack of self-control off the field with ill discipline on it (another 13 penalties conceded on Saturday to add to the 17 the week before), but something is amiss.
Jones has never been one to shy away from confrontation and, in many ways, such a spiky exterior can serve a team well. Many sides have thrived within the walls of such a siege mentality, but England have not. They need a different approach, a tilt on the tiller, be that of tactics, personnel or mindset.
Jones, though, insists that England are on the right track and that he will not be doing anything radically different, despite the clamour for change.
England supporters, many of whom are here in South Africa, are baffled. The head coach is adamant that things will eventually take a turn for the better. And how can he say that with such conviction?
“Just like when I took the team over that couldn’t make it out of their World Cup pool,” said Jones, who won his first 18 Tests in charge, a world record-equalling sequence.
“This is the job of the coach, to find a way to turn it around. I know as a coach you have a certain role and, if I wasn’t doing that role as well as I could, I would have a loss of confidence. My job is to make the team win and it is not winning. But I have also got a job to do, which is the process of coaching. I think I am doing that as well as I can. And the results will come. But it’s tough.
“Sometimes you have to be very disciplined in the way you think. In these sort of situations you get a lot of advice, [people saying] there is a lot of things wrong, but we are only two to three per cent away from turning this around. I absolutely know that.
“I thought it was going to be today. The way we started, I thought, well, here we go. But we couldn’t get that last little bit of the game. I have experienced this with other teams, where you have got a team that is ready to win but you just lose crucial parts of the game and you end up losing by small margins.
“Then, 12 months later, you end up winning those games by small margins. I don’t think so at all [that I have to change the manner in which I deliver the message]. You look at the first 25 minutes. No, not at all. It is just changing how the brain thinks.
“We have got to play each moment of the game, rather than be concerned about the scoreboard.”
There would appear to be little inclination to swing the axe in selection. Jones was asked about the performance of Danny Cipriani, who finally got a run from the bench in the 66th minute.
“He was one of the reserves that came on,” said Jones baldly. “And our reserves didn’t do the job they needed to do.”
As for the penalties? “I’m not blaming the players at all, but they are individual decisions made on the field,” said Jones, doing just that.
The England scrum was under the cosh, conceding a penalty try in the 50th minute after the impressive Duane Vermeulen had smashed his way over in the 24th minute to trigger the Springbok fightback.
England had no one to match him, or the sharp-eyed effervescence of either Faf de Klerk or Willie le Roux. The goalkicking of Handre Pollard did the rest. He might as well have planted his right boot into the solar plexus of England for down they went, wounded and winded, badly in need of resuscitation.