England 'nowhere near good enough,' says Eddie Jones

Despite ending a 10-year winless drought against South Africa, England still have a long way to go says coach Eddie Jones. Photo / Photosport

England head coach Eddie Jones declared his side to be "nowhere near good enough" despite ending a 10-year winless run against South Africa with a comprehensive 37-21 victory.

Two tries in either half from Jonny May, Courtney Lawes, George Ford and Owen Farrell maintained Jones's 100 per cent record as coach. England's winning run now stands at 11 games. Should they secure victories in their remaining fixtures of the Old Mutual Wealth Series against Fiji, Argentina and Australia then they will match the record of 14 victories in a row set under Sir Clive Woodward in 2003.

Yet Jones was far from satisfied with the performance against a poor Springbok side who capitalised on early English indiscipline before scoring second-half tries through Johan Goosen and Willie Le Roux when the result was already decided.

"We are pleased with the result having not beaten South Africa for 10 years but we are certainly not satisfied with our performance - there are areas of our game that really need tidying up," Jones said. "Some of our attack was good today and some was very poor. Defensively we gave away a soft try at the end which wasn't very good and was disappointing. Overall we got a pass mark today.

"We gave away some silly penalties defensively which we didn't need to do. We should never give away an offside penalty. We should trust our defence. Marland [Yarde] gave one away in the air which we shouldn't do again. It is just those little bits and pieces we need to tidy. It is the difference between playing club rugby and international rugby."

A week short of the anniversary of his appointment and Jones has transformed the mood around Twickenham, delivering a first Grand Slam in 13 years, a first ever series victory in Australia and now ending their barren run against the Springboks without five first-choice players.

"When I took the job I had no expectations," Jones said. "All I knew was that I was inheriting a very good side that was put together by Stuart Lancaster that had oodles and oodles of talent. My job was to make sure that talent produced performances. We are starting to get there, but we have got to get better. We are nowhere near good enough at the moment."

There were several excellent individual performances for Jones to reflect upon. Scrum-half Ben Youngs set up tries for Ford and Farrell, who scored 19 points, with a pair of show and goes; outside centre Elliot Daly, on his first start, also had a hand in the first-half tries; while lock Joe Launchbury was declared man of the match.

The challenge, according to Jones, is for the players to continue their upwards trajectory.

"There has always been depth in England rugby - it is about the players having more ambition and we are starting to see players with more ambition to be top-class international players," Jones said. "The most pleasing thing for us is to have three of the six nominations for the World Player of the Year [Maro Itoje, Billy Vunipola and Owen Farrell].

"Ben's going in the right direction. I think he has got the potential to be one of the best half backs in the world. That's what we wanted him to be. Elliot did really well. He's a nice player and has got the ability at 13 to make outside breaks which is enormously important. He's got that educated left foot kick - you can tell he's been to a public school. That gives you another attacking weapon."

Despite the inevitable bumps and bruises a victory against South Africa will entail, there appeared to be no fresh injury concerns. Although Jones has said that he will mix up his selection against Fiji next week, he will not be making a radical overhaul.

"We are looking at opportunities for how we can improve the team in the short term and potentially the long term," Jones said. "We won't just be randomly giving caps to guys who didn't play today. I can assure you that."