The wheels are off the chariot.
After suffering a fifth consecutive test defeat, a whole host of England rugby players threw their toys out of the pram on Saturday afternoon. Eddie Jones' side suffered an eleven point, 23-12 loss to South Africa in Bloemfontein and the Saxons are now 126 days without a win in international rugby.
This test series with South Africa is now consigned to the dustbin, and a season that began with such optimism for England can't end quick enough for them. They will now head to Capetown this Saturday with nothing more than a dead rubber on the horizon.
England raced out of the blocks in South Africa, and were up by 12 points after 13 minutes of the action. They wouldn't register a score in the hour plus of rugby that followed.
But the controversy would only truly begin after the final whistle of the game. While frustration is a given after their recent run of results, it is the England players' duty as professionals to act in a manner becoming of their status as such, and not to take their anger out on others.
That, it appears, was exactly what happened as soon as this game ended. Never far from the headlines, both Mike Brown and Joe Marler reportedly got involved in verbals with Springbok fans in the stands.
https://twitter.com/DuncanBech/status/1008066569711341573
The usually unassuming Ben Youngs walked away from a Sky Sports interview rudely and without even signing off.
https://twitter.com/SkySportsRugby/status/1008071861421436929
He later apologised for his actions but when a sound character of his ilk is acting up, you just know there's something toxic going on in that squad behind the scenes.
https://twitter.com/benyoungs09/status/1008047591387553793
This England squad is fairly well renowned for its arrogance. Feeding down from their boorish and belligerent manager Eddie Jones, a number of England players appear to have taken a lead from this. They appear to have some sort of 'us against the world' siege mentality in place, with Mike Brown and Joe Marler typifying this rudeness.
This is hardly healthy for a team's spirit and England's run of form shows that these tactics don't appear to be working for them.
