England defence coach Gustard sends stark message to players over Jo'burg collapse

England defence coach Paul Gustard is expecting a vast improvement in the second Test against South Africa and urged the players to “take responsibility and accountability for their actions”.

Eddie Jones’ side raced to an early 24-3 lead with less than 20 minutes gone in Johanesburg, but collapsed after that, shipping five tries in a 42-39 defeat. It consigned England to a fourth Test loss in a row.

“No team, including the All Blacks, has gone to Ellis Park and put on a performance like that. We couldn’t sustain it, we made some bad errors and we made some poor decisions and let ourselves down a bit. We conceded five tries, we’re not happy about that, but South Africa conceded five tries. The game was fast, attack was the winner of the day and both defences didn’t defend well as we could.” Gustard told Sky Sports.

“We’re disappointed. We didn’t defend well. We were tight and our spacing was poor. I don’t coach that”, the new Harlequins head coach added.

“It’s not what the players want to do, we just didn’t deliver what we know we’re capable of. We’ll look to put that right this week. Overall we played some really good stuff. The first 20 minutes and last 20 were really good, the middle 40 were not so good.”

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“We lost composure. There’s a knock-on effect of things going against you, which you can’t quantify perhaps – the mental and energy drain that comes with losing momentum. And we need to correct that.”

He may be leaving at the end of this series but Gustard is determined to go out on a high and sent out a message to the players that they must to step up.

“We need to find a way to help coach the players. The players need to take responsibilty and accountability for their actions. We win together, we lose together, we get good memories together and we get bad memories together. This is all part of our journey of winning the World Cup in 2019. ”

And he’s certainly not lost hope of achieving a series success either.

“Absolutely we can rescue the series. We lost by three points. The penalty count was 17 v four. There are lots of positives. There’s still lots of opportunities left and we’re looking forward to putting our best foot forward on Saturday.”

CREDIT: Sky Sports