The moment Maro Itoje welcomed Bok newbie to Test rugby
Evan Roos was not earning his first Springboks cap against England on Saturday, but these are still early days in the No8’s international career.
His third match in green did not get off to a good start at Twickenham, as he had the ball unceremoniously stripped from his clutches by Maro Itoje inside the opening minute of the match.
Take a look at the rip:
Early mayhem!
Itoje robs Roos, Sinckler down by Faf
Eben in for the steal pic.twitter.com/qJyEBAkyRp
— Jared Wright (@jaredwright17) November 30, 2022
That was perhaps one of the last good things England did all match though, as they went on to lose 27-13 in one of their poorest performances in recent years.
Eddie Jones is now staring down the barrel of a sacking after an autumn where England only won one game. Barring their eight minute flourish to salvage a draw against the All Blacks, it was a lacklustre campaign by Jones side, and off the back of a poor Six Nations, there is plenty of pressure on the Australian.
England did also have a poor 2018 before going on to reach the World Cup final in 2019, so Jones has a track record of turning things around, but England have been abject for a while.
The questions on every England fan’s lips is whether it is too late to replace Jones with the World Cup less than a year away and who would he replaced by. Scott Robertson, Steve Borthwick and Ronan O’Gara have appeared as the frontrunners to take on the role, however, the Irishman is set to sign a contract extension at La Rochelle, which looks like it will rule him out of the England job.
In contrast, though South Africa lost two matches during their November tour, it was a positive end to their year. Those two losses came against the two best sides in the world, Ireland and France, and were only narrow defeats.
