Ollie Phillips: Danny Cipriani and Dan Robson need to be on England’s radar for South Africa tour

Rumblings of the same old Eddie Jones – really impactful in the first couple of years before losing his way – are well and truly underway following England’s fifth-place Six Nations finish.

Fantastic results and quality performances over the past two years have brought an expectation and that pressure will be weighing heavily upon Jones at the present time, and he has to turn England’s fortunes around pretty quickly.

England tour South Africa – a team in disarray but still a tough proposition – in the summer and start their autumn campaign against the Springboks before facing the mighty New Zealand, so it’s a hard run.

Jones really has to mastermind a compelling set of performances and results in South Africa to avoid the pressure ratcheting to immense proportions a year out from the 2019 World Cup in Japan.

Whatever Jones’s plan for the Six Nations, it backfired. In truth, it was an accident waiting to happen given the struggles of English sides in European club competitions and fatigue from the British and Irish Lions tour last summer.

But I bet Jones would have been thinking England would win the championship and create history by sealing a third successive championship, which would have allowed him to rest his Lions players for South Africa with minimal risk.

Even if England lost to the Springboks in those circumstances, the fall out would be easy to manage and, even in defeat, Jones could almost depict himself as a genius for blooding new players.

That doesn’t apply now after three straight defeats but he has to stick to his guns and rest those Lions players, who need to recuperate given the volume of rugby they’ve played.

That said, however, going to South Africa with the Lions rested at least means Jones can fill his squad with the Premiership’s in-form players.

It would also enable him to return to the philosophy he put into practice when he first took the England job of picking players who are producing week in, week out for their clubs.

I have previously written how much I would like to see Jones re-adopt that mindset and, in terms of the South Africa tour, I would love see fly-half Danny Cipriani earn a recall.

In South Africa, where the tracks are dry and the forwards are lumps, England will need someone to run the opposition ragged and pull them out of position. That man is Cipriani.

The 30-year-old’s potential selection is complicated by suggestions he could move abroad when his Wasps contract expires at the end of the season, which would end hopes of him reviving his England career. But if he’s available, he should go.

I’d also like Dan Robson, Zach Mercer, Nick Isiekwe, Luke Cowan-Dickie and Henry Slade to tour, while Don Armand, who came on as a second-half replacement against Ireland, deserves more game-time.

There are other dangerous players performing consistently well in the Premiership, such as Gloucester full-back Jason Woodward – he’s a class act – and Harlequins centre Joe Marchant.

How exciting would an England backline of Robson, Cipriani, Slade and Joseph, for instance, be? It would be scary. These players deserve an opportunity and the South Africa tour is the perfect time for them to feature prominently.

Ollie Phillips is a former England Sevens captain and now a director at PwC, focusing on organisational, cultural and technological change.