Ed in the game: Jones goads Boks as world champions look to end 2021 on a high

In a year of some landmark victories, toppling England at Twickenham on Saturday would rank alongside anything the Boks have achieved in 2021.

It’s been a brutally long slog to get to this point. The world champions have played 12 Tests and been locked in various bio-bubbles for months on end. Yet they can cap off the season by ending the year as the No 1-ranked team in the world.

To do that, they have to beat England at Twickenham for the first time since 2014, which would also mean they would complete an undefeated northern hemisphere tour for the first time since 2013.

There is a lot to play for, but none of those potential milestones matter as much as simply beating England. The richest and most resourced team in the world always carries a superior air and the Boks love nothing more than piercing that arrogance.

It’s not simple though. England are a very good team with an excellent coach in Eddie Jones. They have the tools to beat any opposition on their day and especially in front of 82,000 fans at home.

First, though, the England pack will have to meet the challenge the Boks will present. Few teams have matched the Springbok eight and none has dominated them since 2018, and as the season has progressed the Bok forwards have appeared more menacing with each passing week.

England and South Africa have not met since the 2019 Rugby World Cup final, where the Boks dismantled the England pack on their way to a 32-12 victory. Those scars run deep, even if some of the personnel have changed on both sides.

In the build-up, Jones claimed that the Boks implied their pack were “weak” at some stage, somewhere. Eddie could start a fight in an empty room, and he appeared to be at it again in the build-up to this clash.

“They said after the World Cup final, where they beat us fair and square, that they knew how to play us, they knew where our weaknesses were, and they were implying that our forward pack was weak,” Jones said this week. “Our forward pack’s not weak, and we’ll have an opportunity on Saturday to show that.

“Siya Kolisi [the captain] after the final said he knew how to beat us. Obviously, their game is based on physicality, so the implication is that they can go over our forward pack. But our English forward pack won’t be weak on Saturday. We’ll have 82,000 people supporting that forward pack and we’re looking forward to that contest up front.”

It’s all part of Jones’s gamesmanship and tactics to gee up his own team. Anyone in Springbok gear who has made a public utterance this week, has said that they have drawn a line under that spectacular day in Yokohama.

This is a new era, with new goals and objectives. Dwelling on that happy night two years ago serves no purpose for the Boks. They are forward thinking and looking.

“I wouldn’t be able to know what Eddie is telling his players,” Bok coach Jacques Nienaber said. “From our perspective, the World Cup is so long ago now. We can’t stay in that moment, we need to move on.

England coach Eddie Jones at a training session at The Lensbury in Teddington, London on 28 September 2021. He's employed his usual gamesmanship and tactics to gee up his team before their Springbok clash. (Photo: David Rogers/Getty Images)