Robbo: 'There's No turning back'

Andy Robinson insists England will continue to attack against the Springboks.

International Test match, England v South Africa, Twickenham, Saturday November 18, 2.30pm, live on Sky Sports 2

England boss Andy Robinson laid things on the line to his players ahead of Saturday's South Africa clash, declaring: "There's no going back."

Robinson could be embarking on the final two matches of his reign this weekend, a reign that has yielded 12 defeats from 20 matches.

After last week's historic loss to Argentina, the England boss knows performances are under scrutiny every bit as much as results.

And after making seven changes for the visit of the Springboks, Robinson insists he is not about to ask his players to tuck the ball up their jerseys.

"I've told the players this week that there's no going back," fired the England coach. "We can't scrap our attacking framework and go back to nine-man rugby.

"This is what the team need to go through to learn to play in different ways.

"We were all bitterly disappointed by last week. We made too many careless errors, we turned over the ball too easily and we kicked ball away we didn't need to kick away and our performance became very disjointed and ineffectual.

"We got it wrong, we underperformed and the boos were right."

Robinson's England seem to be writing their names into the record books every time they play at the moment, unfortunately - all for the wrong reasons.

New Zealand's triumph two weeks ago was England highest losing margin at Twickenham, while the Pumas win was their first at HQ.

Robinson has responded by turning to some experienced heads, dropping Shaun Perry, Paul Sackey and Anthony Allen for the likes of Mark Cueto and Josh Lewsey.

Perhaps most significantly however, Martin Corry remains captain for Saturday's crucial international, and he has the full backing of his boss.

"I believed it was right Martin Corry stayed as captain this week. It took a brave man to stand up last week and say the players were to blame.

"But to then shoot him and say you're no longer captain would have been completely wrong."

Speaking of his own position after the Argentina reverse, a result that drew mass boos from the usually supportive Twickenham crowd, Robinson stated: "There's a lot of irrelevance going on around about me personally but I have to focus on the processes and let other aspects take care of themselves.

"I have a responsibility and I understand my responsibility. I can't hide from that and I won't hide from that."