Eddie Jones could leave key players at home for England’s end-of-season tour of South Africa

Eddie Jones will consider leaving key players including Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje at home this summer despite England heading to South Africa on a run of three straight defeats.

Saturday’s 24-15 defeat by Ireland condemned England to their worst Six Nations campaign in 31 years, with the fifth-place finish providing a stark contrast to the highs that the side enjoyed in Jones’ first two championships in which he won. Having won every Test they played in 2016 and all but one match last year, 2018 has got off to a surprisingly poor start, and the games do not get much easier as Jones takes his squad to South Africa in the summer on a three-Test end-of-season tour.

Of the 23 players who featured against Ireland, 13 of them were part of the British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand last summer, and Jones admitted in the wake of Saturday’s defeat that he will still need to manage those players for the remainder of the season.

“We still have to look at how we look after the Lions players,” Jones said. “That’s still a concern for us. We will do that and that was always in the plans, but otherwise we will select how we always select.

“We’ve always looked at that. We’ll just see if there are any players who will benefit more from not going on the tour.”

Since the start of the season, Farrell has played 1,564 minutes of rugby across 21 appearances for Saracens and England. In comparison, Johnny Sexton has played 933 minutes in 15 appearances for Leinster and Ireland, and while Farrell returned from the Lions tour to play in Saracens’ second game of the season on 9 September, Sexton was not seen back in the blue of Leinster until the end of the month.

The next two months for Jones meanwhile will be largely taken up by watching these Lions players and deciding how best to use them in the summer. Selection does seem to be one of the issues that the 58-year-old needs to resolve, having made 10 changes in total for the match against the Six Nations champions, and it appears that he does not yet know who needs to play where – fly-half, full-back, openside flanker and outside centre all look problematic right now.

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It’s far from the ideal circumstances to be handling ahead of a three-Test series with the Springboks, but Jones believes that the challenge against the fifth-ranked side in the World Rugby rankings.

“It’s a good place, because we can get the team together and work together, day in, day out. It’s going to be fantastic for us and they (South Africa) are going to be a rejuvenated team,” he added.

Player-wise, England should at least have a number of players back for the tour. Billy Vunipola is due back from his fractured arm in the coming weeks, while Jack Nowell and Sam Underhill are also due to return to action. Anthony Watson may well miss the tour, with Jones confirming that the Achilles injury that he suffered in the first half on Saturday is “not good”, but Ben Youngs will return from his knee ligament injury next month and there is also the prospect of a fully fit Manu Tuilagi coming back into the fold – a return that will certainly help with England’s current ball-carrying problems.

There is also the chance for the current players to redeem themselves after this disappointment, and England wing Jonny May believes that returning from South Africa with a series win would put them right back on course for where they need to be ahead of the next Rugby World Cup.

“It’s a great opportunity. If we were to go out there and win a series then it would definitely be a foot back in the right direction after taking a bit of a hit,” said May. “We have a lot of rebuilding to do because three in a row isn’t good enough.

“You can’t forget what we have done and what we can be but we have to start from the bottom up again. We’re not back at square one but we’ve definitely taken a dip. With that comes an opportunity to focus and learn and get better. This team is still going to get better – there’s no doubt about that – but we were flying high and it’s going to take some hard work and a run of good games to get back to where we need to be before the World Cup.”

But on the flip side, further defeats against the Springboks would put Jones and his squad under increasing pressure, with Wales head coach Warren Gatland admitting before the weekend that England could easily see their mini-crisis turn into a full blown one if they slip to six straight losses.

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May was surprised by those comments from the Wales head coach, but conceded that the current loss of form does place extra scrutiny on their next few games.

“I don’t know why he would be talking about our games. He coaches Wales,” May added. “We’ll see. I’d be surprised if you don’t see a response from this group. I’m sure we’re going to get better. I’d back us every time.

“We haven’t expected to lose any of these games, we’ll keep working. I know that we are good enough to beat anybody – that’s the belief in our group.

“There will definitely be more focus on us now – the pressure is going to come on this group because of the nature of what has happened. This is why we need to stay tight and focus on what we can control and just treat them as separate games of rugby where we want to get better and win.”