England No 8 Ben Earl says that playing the Springboks at Ellis Park will be a “bucket list” moment for him on Saturday in the Nations Championship opener in Johannesburg.
The 50-cap Earl says he and his teammates cannot wait to tackle the world champions in their spiritual home.
“Ellis Park is one of the grounds that when you play for your country, you want to play there,” Earl said. “Thankfully we have a chance to do that.
“It is one of those bucket list moments for a lot of us,” Earl said. “To play the best team in the world in one of the best stadiums in the world is pretty cool.”
The England team suffered their worst-ever Six Nations campaign earlier this year, but they signed off with a much-improved performance against France in Paris. They lost 48-46, and should have won the game but for a self-implosion in the dying seconds.
England played much more expansively and earned much praise, but Earl says it wasn’t necessarily a light bulb moment in terms of how they should play.
“A lot has been made about that game, and rightly so because we played very well, but we conceded 48 points, and you are not going to win many Test matches when you concede that many points.
“It was an amazing game, and France are a top team, but we had seen parts of our game come together throughout the Six Nations campaign.
“There were moments when we lost it, like in the Ireland game and parts of the Scotland game, but as a team we grew, and there was improved clarity about how we go about our work. We would rather learn these lessons now than in Brisbane in September next year at the World Cup.”
It has been said that England have an identity crisis because they can’t get the balance right between using the width of the field with their backs or using their forwards as a weapon.
“The currency of international sport is winning, and that is the correct way of doing it,” Earl said of their game strategy. “There are ways to connect to fans while doing that. We feel we have been on a journey since the 2023 World Cup, with highs and lows.
“Thankfully, I have been in the team consistently since then. I have learned so much about how we want to play as an England team, how we feel we connect as a player group, which is easier said than done at times.
“For instance, it is pretty abstract that the guys at Northampton and Exeter just two weekends ago were playing a great final and now all of a sudden they meet up as teammates.
“Those are challenges, but we are making massive inroads in how that can work for us, and how we want to play as a team.”
