England's South Africa win hailed as Jones "rebirth" before decline cost jobs

21 October 2023 , 08:30

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Marcus Smith's late penalty secured England's last win over South Africa

England saw off the world champions in November 2021 at Twickenham and the win was hailed as a "rebirth" before they lost seven of their next 12 games.

A new look side completed a successful Autumn series by beating South Africa in their first meeting since the Rugby World Cup final in 2019, which the Springboks won in commanding fashion. They arrived in south west London looking to underline their dominance, but came up against an inspired outfit.

England edged a titanic affair by one point, sealing a 27-26 victory thanks to a last minute penalty from Marcus Smith, who was looking to establish himself as the country's 10 despite the presence of Owen Farrell and George Ford. Neither were picked that evening at Twickenham and Smith stood up - as did several other young English hopefuls.

Jones felt his side were entering a new era as he hailed their impact: “Yes, we said in the summer that the Lions tour draws a line in the sand, and that you need to regenerate and have a little bit of a rebirth to go to the World Cup. There’s some good players coming through but we’ve got some pretty good experienced players too.

“They feel comfortable within themselves, they want to be together, they want to work together. Our stated aim is to win the World Cup, so we want to be better in the next campaign.”

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Freddie Steward, then with only a hand full of caps, scored one of England's three tries that day. Raffi Quirke, the Sale scrum-half, came off the bench to grab a vital score with the likes of Bevan Rodd and Jamie Blamire in the front row as many of the established order were missing.

Raffi Quirke was among the try scorers

Max Malins, a man who still has huge potential, was on the bench, as were Will Stuart and Charlie Ewels, two men who still have few caps despite the being in their late 20s, were beginning to stake their case for more involvement.

“This series just gives the players a lot of confidence I think,” Jones added. “With the first try against Australia and a couple of tries we scored today, we’ve added some really good, aggressive attack into our game. At times the Springboks got on top of us in the set-piece, but we managed to edge out enough quality possession to score enough points.”

Fast forward a year and it was defeat to South Africa that would end Jones' time as England coach with the RFU growing frustrated with results and performances. The team's "rebirth" had stalled and the energy and excitement from 12 months earlier had gone.

Max Malins has struggled for minutes at this World Cup

We are nearing one year since Jones was shown the door with Steve Borthwick coming in to replace him. There was by no means an upturn in results across the Six Nations and World Cup warm-ups, but England find themselves in a semi-final taking on the world champions once more.

The gap between the sides though has never appeared so vast and the team haven't been able to continue integrating the young players who looked set for big things. Instead the majority of the players who will start on Saturday have been round the block on numerous occasions.

Steward has made himself a regular and Alex Mitchell continues to become increasingly influential at scrum-half. Beyond that though and the likes of Malins and new star Henry Arundell have barely been given a look-in by those picking the England team with less than half the starting XV under 30 ahead of a potential rebuild in the years to come.

Samuel Meade