Jones sacked by England after poor season

Eddie Jones's roller-coaster ride as England coach has come to an end after he was sacked by the Rugby Football Union following a review into their November series that ended with the team being booed off the pitch at Twickenham.

That rare supporter reaction to a comprehensive 27-13 defeat by a weakened South Africa - and Jones's subsequent comment that he did not care what anybody else thought - appears to have been the final straw for the anonymous panel that sat to review the tests, that also included defeat by Argentina, a draw against New Zealand and victory over Japan.

After announcing his dismissal, the governing body said: "The RFU will now conclude the long-term work it has been undertaking on coach succession planning with changes set to be announced in the near future. In the interim, (forwards coach) Richard Cockerill will take over the day to day running of the men's team."

England won only five of their 12 games in 2022 after a second-successive Six Nations where they lost three of their five games.

Yet Jones, 62, who led Australia to the 2003 World Cup final and Japan to their shock victory over South Africa in 2015, continued to insist they were on the right track for next year's global tournament, his number one, and seemingly only, priority.

Jones, who took over after England's group-stage exit from the 2015 tournament they hosted, had a contract until the end of next year's World Cup in France.

Despite the continuing struggles on the pitch, the Australian insisted that after he had got his squad together for a three-month training camp next summer they would reveal a whole new attacking structure and emerge as serious contenders to lift the Webb Ellis Cup for a second time.

While that "jam tomorrow" approach might well have been an accurate summation, the RFU seem to have decided that they could not sacrifice every other aspect of the national team's performance to get there.