'Can't rewind the clock': Borthwick desperate to understand England's bad habit
Steve Borthwick is to urgently investigate England’s habit of fading that has been evident in his two matches in charge, knowing it could leave his players with regrets.
England threw away a 20-12 lead with half an hour remaining of their Guinness Six Nations opener against Scotland and were also one point in front heading into the final 10 minutes before ultimately falling 29-23.
And against Italy on Sunday they lost the second half 14-12 with tension hanging in the Twickenham air until Henry Arundell produced a slick finish in the 71st minute to quell the Azzurri uprising.
One win and one defeat places England third in the table, but with a fraught trip to Cardiff up next followed by clashes with the world’s two best teams in France and Ireland, Borthwick is making a priority of identifying why they are vulnerable in the second half.
“At eight points up I would expect to win that game against Scotland. There was another point we were four points up and we let it slip,” said Borthwick, who replaced the sacked Eddie Jones in December.
“As we move forward with this team, as we coach and understand, we will be debriefing those things really fully so we don’t let those opportunities slide.
“You can’t rewind the clock. I talked about my regrets as a player and I don’t want these players to have regrets.
“We let one slip against Scotland and we made sure we fully debriefed it to learn from it.
“Against Italy, there was a period late in the game where we let momentum get away from us. I really need to understand why it happened and how it happened.
“We can’t keep letting teams have momentum late in games against us. Clearly we let Italy out of their half, which is exactly what happened against Scotland. Systems take time.”
On the day before England’s pack bullied their Italian counterparts, Ireland and France fought out a seismic title clash in Dublin that saw a ball-in-play time of 46 minutes.
Andy Farrell’s men came out on top and are destined to arrive at the World Cup later this year as the global game’s number one ranked team, while France have the talent to ensure the setback is only temporary.
Borthwick watched the match and admits England have some catching up to do.
“It was an incredible Test match. The standard of those teams is phenomenal,” he said.
“If you can use this four-year cycle really well, you should be in a good situation right now and they are. If you look at them they are strong. We are a bit behind them.
“I can’t tell you how much but we are behind them. I can’t do anything about where they are but we are going to work really hard to catch up as fast as we can.”
Borthwick inherited a team that endured a dismal 2022, resulting in Jones being removed as head coach, and he insists there is no fast-track to success.
“We are going to do the best we can to be as good as we can be. This is a process of a rebuild,” he said.
“I get the sense that people recognise this is a rebuild, I get a sense they recognise there is plenty to do here and we need to build some strengths here.
“The players have come through a tough time and I am asking them to do things in a different way and go out on the field and bring their strengths.
“I felt that against Italy they started to embrace that. Last week there was a reticence to really jump right in. That is what I want them to do.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Ever so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
24 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
24 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
24 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
24 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
9 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
9 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to commentsIt couldn’t have been Ryan Crotty. He wasn’t selected in either World Cup side - they chose Money Bill instead. And Money Bill only cared about himself, and that manager he had, not the team.
28 Go to comments