Ben Earl has admitted that England are testing fans’ patience after their latest slip-up against Australia.
A fourth consecutive defeat sparked renewed questions over the side’s direction under Steve Borthwick, with the goodwill earned in the Six Nations win over Ireland now surely squandered.
While three narrow defeats to the All Blacks came against high-class opposition, the Wallabies have been languishing in the world rankings and finished bottom of the Rugby Championship, yet came out on top in a helter-skelter affair at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham.
While insisting that belief remains in the England ranks, Earl understands that supporters are perhaps starting to doubt their claims of having made progress.
“We’re testing the fans’ patience, testing our patience,” the number eight said. “It doesn’t feel like it’s a lack of effort, it really doesn’t. It just feels like every game is just throwing a different scenario, situation, feeling that we might not have experienced before as a team.
“It feels like we won the game twice and then managed to lose it. [It’s] not the same old problems, different problems, but the same overwhelming feeling of another game that we’ve let slip.
“It felt like we were in control. It never felt looking around that group that we weren’t going to win the game. I guess that has to be a positive in terms of there was no one looking over their shoulder being like, ‘we’ve been in this position before and lost.’
“So that’s a positive. I think it’s just, again, there are different challenges, different curveballs, different questions being posed of this team. Again, we’ve come up short answer-wise.”
The loss was England’s sixth of the year, guaranteeing that they will not emerge from 2024 with a winning record even if they beat world champions South Africa and Japan in their remaining two November fixtures.
The Springboks will pose a mighty challenge next week and will have been licking their lips having seen England so porous defensively.
Borthwick’s side have historically responded well when under pressure, though, and may look to revisit a siege mentality so effective during last year’s World Cup campaign.
“This team’s always been brilliant at responding when questions have been asked of us and our character,” Earl explained. “And we need to respond.
“We don’t want to respond just to change headlines, we want to win. We want to win for our fans. We want to win for ourselves, because, it’s a bit of a tedious feeling coming into the sheds for a second time in consecutive weeks and feeling like it’s another game that’s there to win.
“I think we know that when we’re on the song, we can beat anyone. We can beat anyone. So there is never a foregone conclusion in Test match rugby. If rugby games were 75 minutes long, we’d be two from two and this would be a very different feeling. Unfortunately, they’re not. We’ve got to front up to that, but what a challenge next week and something to get really excited about.”
