England went head to head against the Springboks on Saturday and lost 20-29, making it the team’s longest drought since a run of five losses back in 2018.

The rugby ace has admitted to having sleepless nights as he replayed his missed tackle on South African player Damian de Allende over and again in his head and says his mistakes cost him the match.

Speaking to The Telegraph newspaper: “I probably did not sleep for the two nights, genuinely.

“Monday was the first time I had a full sleep. It’s awful. There’s nothing for it. That’s the beauty of Test match rugby: I think I made 15 tackles but the one I missed and they score. That’s Test match rugby. If you were to ask me what my big growth is it is delivering really late on in those games and, being a vice-captain and senior leader in this group, I need to deliver in those moments."

He added: “I have missed one tackle and it has cost us the match. I have given one or two penalties in this campaign and it has cost us the match. The New Zealand one, again a completely reckless thing to do when the stakes were highest. This is not woe is me. This is a case of how amazing is it that this game that we are playing is on such a knife edge and if you don’t get the best out of yourself at every moment then you will let a lot of people down.

"To me, that is amazing but scary. At the end of the day, this is where I want to be. If I didn’t want to do it then I could go back to club rugby where you don’t get the same scrutiny. This is where I want to be but sometimes you come up short, like I did at the weekend.”