Haskell’s inclusion in place of Tom Croft is the only change on Saturday to England’s starting XV from last weekend’s 28-14 defeat to Australia.

Croft is included among the replacements and is joined on the bench by uncapped Leicester number eight Jordon Crane, who has replaced Michael Lipman in the squad.

Otherwise, Johnson has kept faith with the tight five that struggled to impose themselves against the Wallabies and named the same back division for a third week running.

Haskell was one of the few England players to return from the summer tour of New Zealand with his reputation enhanced after two impressive performances against the All Blacks.

He lost his place to Croft, after making a slow start to the season in a struggling Wasps side.

But Haskell made an immediate impression when he came off the bench last weekend and he will offer a more physical presence against the dynamic Springbok back row.

Johnson admits he was tempted to make more changes but is trying to build a new team and decided to give his inexperienced players the chance to make amends for last week.

England conceded “careless” penalties and failed to capitalise on the opportunities they did create against the Wallabies.

“It’s great we can choose between two very young and exciting players in James and Tom,” said Johnson.

“We want to get some consistency in the team. They are aware of the mistakes we made - but they have the opportunity to correct them.

“The defeat rankles. We are still growing into the way we are playing. It only takes a momentary lapse, a few guys going off script in the heat of battle, for things to break down in that area.

“We gave away eight kickable penalties. We need to cut out mistakes, cut out penalties and put ourselves in a position in the last 20 minutes to win the game.

“The great thing from our point of view is that there are lots of opportunities out there - we just have to see them and exploit them.”

England failed to dominate in the scrum as they had done against the Wallabies in the World Cup quarter-final.

But Johnson said: “We will see a different game this week and a better scrummaging contest.”

England team: D Armitage (London Irish); P Sackey (Wasps), J Noon (Newcastle), R Flutey (Wasps), U Monye (Harlequins); D Cipriani (Wasps), D Care (Harlequins); A Sheridan (Sale Sharks), L Mears (Bath), P Vickery (Wasps), S Borthwick (Saracens, capt), T Palmer (Wasps), J Haskell (Wasps), T Rees (Wasps), N Easter (Harlequins).

Replacements: D Hartley (Northampton), M Stevens (Bath), S Shaw (Wasps), T Croft (Leicester), J Crane (Leicester), H Ellis (Leicester), T Flood (Leicester).