England expect ‘different’ Boks

Eddie Jones says he expects the Springboks to 'play a little more rugby' than they're accustomed to when the two teams meet at Twickenham on 12 November.

On Wednesday, the England coach selected six uncapped players in a 33-man squad for the end-of-year Tests, with a clash against the Boks set to be followed by encounters with Fiji, Argentina and Australia.

England haven't secured a victory over the Boks since 2006, but they will be strong favourites to break that sequence next month.

In anticipation of that clash, England recently held an intensive training camp in Brighton, with Jones championing the need to play with real intensity.

'We don’t have a great record against South Africa, so we’ve got change that to make new history,' he commented. 'They’ve lost four or five icon players and are regenerating themselves under a new coach but we know they’ll be up for it at Twickenham.'

Although Jones said he knew the Boks were generally quite happy to play without the ball, he suggested that they weren't expecting the visitors to be quite so predictable.

'They’ve picked an interesting squad and look like they’ll play a little more rugby than we’re used to from South Africa. At 10 they have [Elton] Jantjies, [Pat] Lambie and possibly Johan Goosen, so we’ll probably see a different style from the South African team that will present different challenges for our defence.'

Photo: David Rogers/Getty Images

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