England vs South Africa: Ben Youngs says exorcising Springboks demons is just the start of journey to the top

Youngs helped dismantle South Africa but England aren't getting ahead of themselves in their quest to reach the top

Ben Youngs dummied Pieter-Steph du Toit twice to set-up tries for George Ford and Owen Farrell (Getty)

Ben Youngs believes that England’s crushing victory over South Africa is just the beginning after the scrum-half took a lead role in structuring a first victory over the Springboks for 10 years.

The Leicester Tigers half-back flummoxed South African make-shift flanker Pieter-Steph du Toit not once but twice to unpick a frail South African defence and set-up tries for George Ford and Owen Farrell, which followed first-half tries for Jonny May and Courtney Lawes in the 37-21 victory at Twickenham on Saturday.

Youngs has made the No 9 shirt his own under Eddie Jones, and with England riding a wave of momentum in winning all 10 matches under the Australian head coach, he believes they are shaping up to take on New Zealand for the claim to be the best in the world.

“South Africa are a huge rugby nation and beating them will give this team another layer of confidence,” said Youngs. “It is another step of building to where we want to get to.

“That is number one in the world and that is another step, but to get there we need to control the ball better, have better discipline and want to put teams under more pressure.

“But there is a lot more to come from us and that is the overriding feeling in the dressing room, we got the result and our campaign under way with a win.”

Not one member of Jones’s squad had enjoyed victory over South Africa, with the last win coming at Twickenham in November 2006, and having broken onto the seen on the 2010 tour of Australia, Youngs is one of those who have experienced more pain against the Boks than others.

With south-west London soaked all morning before kick-off, conditions suggested that England would struggle to impose their new attacking belief under Jones, but that did not stop them from running in four tries to South Africa’s two and Youngs believes that this current side are able to adapt their style to fit their surroundings.

“It was greasy so was better without the ball at times than it was with it,” he said. “There is more to come from us without a doubt, we haven’t beaten South Africa for ten years so we are delighted with that.

“We did leave some points out there and it could have been more, we had a couple of other chances to score but I’ll take the win because I've never beaten South Africa.”

He added: “Eddie has been brilliant at installing team belief and also installs a lot of self-belief and today was an example of how much I am enjoying my rugby.”

Jones admitted after the match that he will rotate certain players for this week’s Test with Fiji, although stressed that he will not make changes just for the sake of it.

“We'll be looking to improve the team. So we're looking at opportunities of how we can improve the team in the short term and potentially the long term,” the unbeaten head coach said.

May celebrates scoring England's first try with Youngs and Yarde (Getty)

“I've got an idea of who we're going to select and who we're not going to select. We won't just be randomly giving caps to guys who didn't play today, I can assure you of that.”