England’s Rugby Football Union has warned Eddie Jones that the team needs to display a reversal in fortunes during the end-of-year Tests.

England finished fifth in this year’s Six Nations, before slipping to a 2-1 series defeat against the Springboks in June.

Steve Brown, the RFU’s chief executive, said they now expected to see an improvement in results after meeting with Jones to discuss the way forward.

‘I’ve reflected over the time Eddie has been at his post and his win rate. The win rate is still very high [80%] – it’s significant and it’s hard to argue against it.

‘It’s important that we don’t just make a judgement on what’s happened in the very short term. Nevertheless, it was a pretty poor run of results.

‘We showed great character for the result in Cape Town but the series result was disappointing. So was the Six Nations. Coming fifth in the Six Nations was a pretty difficult situation.

‘The last result in South Africa was important but not critical to any decisions we make about the future. The confidence comes from the history to date and talking to Eddie about the plans for the autumn and the World Cup and how to get back to that win rate. I’ve discussed this with Eddie and I’m confident those disappointing results are behind us and can be turned around.’

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