Eddie Jones’s devilish threat was to “make the Twickenham sky fall in on” England here. And yet, rather like the scene in Only Fools and Horses where the Trotters unscrew the wrong chandelier, he caused it only to collapse on his own team. The more the Australian indulges in his beloved mind games, the more they blow up in his face. Since being sacked as England head coach almost four years ago, Jones has overseen Japan in two Tests at this stadium and watched them concede a total of 137 points. Cue a schadenfreude so intense that the ITV director panned after all 13 of the home side’s tries to the sight of him smouldering savagely under his beanie.

Granted, Jones’s raw materials are not what they were. The power dynamics of the global game have evolved hugely since 2015, when he orchestrated Japan’s impressive World Cup upset against South Africa, to the extent that a merciless England bulldozed his defenders as if they were traffic cones. Japan were dismantled in every department, with a brutality that brought nobody much long-term benefit, least of all the man in charge. The final score: 78-15. It is a hideous scoreline for a proud coach to have on his CV and a sign, surely, that at nearly 67, his status as the great disruptor of Test rugby is slipping away.

The bitter truth is that this hiding should have been even grislier, given six missed conversions for George Ford and another two for Henry Slade. One look at the team sheets was enough to confirm that Japan never had a prayer. Ryunosuke Ito, their first-choice fly-half and a raw talent, was absent because of a requirement to represent his university team in Tokyo, and wing Riku Tokito was, astonishingly, competing in his first professional 15-a-side match. Such callowness made a mockery of this match-up, and the ruthless punishment meted out by England merely magnified the sense of farce. All of which begged the question why Jones had spent the week building up to this shellacking throwing out idle boasts.

“Cause some havoc, cause some chaos, put them off their game, get the crowd booing.” This was Jones’s prescription for seizing a result for the ages against England. “We’ve seen it happen with other countries.” He had seen it with Wales, staying in Japan’s dressing room until just before kick-off to savour the full impact of that astonishing humbling of the All Blacks in Cardiff. But while he hoped such a seismic shock could have a galvanising effect, he conceded his team fell prey to the ageless Mike Tyson wisdom about everybody having a plan until they are punched in the face. A 20-minute red card within a minute, as second row Harry Hockings was deemed to have caught Ellis Genge with a shoulder to the head, burst their bubble instantly, leaving them helpless in the face of England’s onslaught.

Jones, seeing all his schemes shredded in the first half an hour, wore a strangely lifeless expression. During his seven years with England, it was customary to see him explode when his players made witless errors. In one tense Twickenham duel with Argentina in 2017, cameras showed him screaming “F---, how stupid are we?” an outburst that drew a reprimand from his then 93-year-old mother. But this time the fire seemed to have been extinguished, replaced by a weary fatalism. While he made all the right noises afterwards about accepting responsibility, you questioned whether his heart was truly in it any longer.

Frankly, you could forgive him if his appetite were waning. For a figure who has spent decades at or near the summit of his sport, playing a role in three World Cup finals, there can be limited pleasure in presiding over such a wretched humiliation. The tale of his past few years, unfortunately, does not lie. Jones’s alchemy began deserting him towards the end of his time with England, with his abrasive attitude succeeding only in antagonising his players. What should have been a stirring return to the Wallabies soured instead into a joyless chapter, encapsulated by the spectacle of Jones wearing an akubra hat at Sydney Airport en route to the 2023 World Cup and telling reporters, in classic Aussie vernacular, to give themselves an upper cut.

Well, three years on, Jones is increasingly doing that to himself. His second coming with Japan has reaffirmed the old adage about never going back, with the Brave Blossoms regressing to their familiar casting as whipping boys for opponents of England’s might. Even his psychological needling is proving to be a blunt instrument. Jones was once peerless at mischievous pre-match wind-ups, using them both to protect his own players and unsettle his foes. But on this occasion his impish provocations were little more than hot air, vanishing into a Twickenham sky that stubbornly refused to fall.

Unapologetically of the old school, Jones simply looks adrift in rugby’s new age. Half-Japanese, with a Japanese wife, he understands that there are few things worse in the culture of his adopted land than losing face. Sadly, in the wake of this scalding embarrassment, that moment is upon us.