Under-pressure coach Andy Robinson called on England fans to get behind his struggling side and said the pain of their current losing streak was necessary if the world champions were to regain their place at the summit of world rugby union.
England face South Africa at Twickenham on Saturday in the first of two back-to-back Tests after a record-equalling run of seven straight defeats.
Victory against the Springboks is widely seen as vital to Robinson’s hopes of keeping his job.
Last weekend England lost 25-18 to Argentina — the Pumas’ first win at Twickenham — having the week before gone down 41-20 to 2007 World Cup favourites New Zealand, England’s heaviest Twickenham defeat.
”I’ve told the players this week that there’s no going back. We can’t scrap our attacking framework and go back to nine-man rugby,” Robinson told reporters at England’s training base in Bisham on Tuesday.
”This is what the team need to go through to learn to play in different ways,” he said after seeing his side drop to seventh, a place below Argentina, in the world rankings.
”We were all bitterly disappointed by last week. We made too many careless errors, we turned over the ball too easily and we kicked ball away we didn’t need to kick away and our performance became very disjointed and ineffectual.
”We got it wrong, we underperformed and the boos were right,” added Robinson, whose side were jeered off the field by a crowd of over 74 000 after the Argentina game.
”I hope this week the crowd come to support the South Africa game and not what happened last week,” pleaded former England flanker Robinson, who has faced widespread calls from the British press for his sacking.
”There’s a lot of irrelevance going on around about me personally but I have to focus on the processes and let other aspects take care of themselves.
”I have a responsibility and I understand my reponsibility. I can’t hide from that and I won’t hide from that and I am not going to,” he said.
”There are going to be some errors but all I ask is that you back this team, the players who are on the pitch trying to achieve this. It will develop, it will come through.”
Robinson, formerly deputy to Clive Woodward, has lost 12 out of 20 matches since succeeding the World Cup-winning coach in 2004.
He had been widely tipped to drop captain Martin Corry and replace him with former skipper Lawrence Dallaglio.
However, Robinson insisted he’d been right to stand by Corry as captain even though director of elite rugby Rob Andrew cast doubt on whether the Leicester back-row was the right man for the job, saying: ”We need to look at the leadership of this group to find a World Cup captain.”
Robinson countered: ”I believed it was right Martin Corry stayed as captain this week. It took a brave man to stand up last week and say the players were to blame. But to then shoot him and say you’re no longer captain would have been completely wrong.”
In all Robinson made seven changes to the side beaten by Argentina.
Among those dropped Tuesday were wing Ben Cohen, flanker Lewis Moody and second-row Danny Grewcock, who have more than 150 caps between them.
Cohen was replaced by fellow World Cup winner Josh Lewsey, with Wasps forward Tom Palmer in for Grewcock and Palmer’s club colleague Joe Worsley recalled in the back-row instead of Moody, who is on the bench.
Corry was moved to his favoured number eight position with Pat Sanderson at openside and Worsley at blindside flanker.
Meanwhile prop Andrew Sheridan returned in place of the injured Perry Freshwater, who made his full debut against Argentina, while scrumhalf Peter Richards, a second-half replacement against the Pumas, replaced Shaun Perry.
Newcastle centre Mathew Tait, controversially dropped by Robinson after his debut against Wales in 2005, replaced Anthony Allen in midfield while the fit-again Mark Cueto returned on the wing in place of Paul Sackey.
The wider impact of England’s run became clear when the Rugby Football Union (RFU) released on Tuesday its financial results for 2005/06, saying they ”show the effects of the poor performance of the England team over the last two years”.
Operating profit was down more than 30% at £16-million (£23-million in 2005) and a pre-tax loss of £1,7-million was incurred with £3,6-million lost in declining revenues.
England have never lost eight successive matches in 135 years of Test rugby. But that is the fate that awaits them if they are beaten by a Springbok side which lost their European tour opener 32-15 against Ireland in Dublin last weekend. – Sapa-AFP