LONG READ Borthwick's England battle, tactical fog and familiar flaws

If there is one quality which England rugby needs right now, it is clarity. Only a couple of months ago, an RFU review of England’s chastening fifth-place finish at the Six Nations promised to provide it.

The governing body confirmed head coach Steve Borthwick would remain in post through to the 2027 Rugby World Cup after what CEO Bill Sweeney described as a “thorough and honest” critique.

“The review concluded that, despite coming off a 12-game winning run, England’s under-performance across the Six Nations was not the result of a singular failure or issue,” Sweeney said.

“Instead, it highlighted a number of interconnected performance areas, such as discipline, execution of opportunities and making the most of key moments, where improvement is required if England are to consistently perform at the level expected.

“While performance confidentiality in a competitive international sporting environment limits the level of detail that can be shared publicly – particularly around game strategy and execution – the way in which the team aspires to play was clear throughout the review.”

Borthwick responded by convincing his paymasters there were “clear plans in place” to eradicate the shortcomings shown up at the beginning of the year, and that redress was already underway. On the evidence of events at Ellis Park on Saturday, there is much ground to make up.

The problems the review would surely have identified – defence and discipline and the contestable high kicking game – were not only alive and kicking in the first round of the Nations Championship. They went backwards.

The combination of a high-quality contestable kicking game and a quick, combative back-row with multiple number sevens was at the beating heart of England’s success on their 12-match unbeaten run, and it was still ticking over nicely only seven months ago.

As a RugbyPass Six Nations review revealed last week, by the end of the championship the England kick-chase had fallen away alarmingly on both sides of the ball.

Despite launching more contestable kicks than any of the other nations bar Italy, the men in white fell well behind France and Scotland and finished below the tournament average in the reclaim stakes. The tale of the tape defending opposition contestables was worse.

England ranked last at defending high kicks with a meagre 57% of successful receipts, and their stats took another dive against South Africa at Ellis Park.

When they set up for their own contestables, a 9% return rate implies England were effectively kicking the ball away for nothing. They also conceded two penalties on chase plus a late yellow card on Northampton’s Tommy Freeman after a head-clash with Damian Willemse in the 70^th minute. When England kicked high, Springbok full-back Willemse was the king of the airwaves, coming forward out of the backfield to meet the ball in the air with regal authority and making clean receipts on seven separate occasions over the 80 minutes.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 6, 2026

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 6, 2026

There are a number of observations to be made on England’s kicking strategy. Four of their contestables were not contestable at all, with the chaser arriving well after the catch has been made. As one recent ex-England scrum-half, Ben Youngs commented: “England’s kick-to-compete wasn’t there. I couldn’t work out what the kick strategy was because I was thinking, are they going to kick short like South Africa did? Grant Williams had that on a string all night, putting it up, allowing those wingers to get in the air and compete. I looked at England, and it wasn’t short enough to go up and compete. It then wasn’t long enough to push you as far away downfield as possible.”

The kicking strategy was as impenetrable as a dense pea-souper on the Victorian Thames, and that may have contributed to Freeman’s frustration, staying upright in the tackle on chase in the first clip and drawing the yellow for head contact. In both instances, there is only one England back-rower with seven-type ability around the ball on the deck after the tackle has been made – Ben Earl in the first instance and Henry Pollock in the second. In November, there would have been two or three hovering at the first breakdown.

The long sequence beginning with Willemse’s receipt, and finishing with a penalty on Cadan Murley on the other side of the field, also illustrated a difference in philosophy between the two sides on kick-receipt: where the Springboks wanted their full-back advancing forward on to the ball with the play-side wing drifting in behind him, England chose to have the wing make the catch facing towards his own goalline, with 15 Marcus Smith hanging off in support.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 6, 2026

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 6, 2026

While the urge to protect Smith from too many collisions in the air might have been understandable, the chosen course of action tended to leave too many England players ahead of the ball and unable to either re-ruck effectively, or drop back from offside positions.

The second area of the review which went from bad to worse was discipline. England conceded a tournament-high eight yellow cards and one red at the Six Nations, six more than champions France, and 55 total penalties, 17 more than Les Bleus. At Ellis Park they gave up 14 penalties and two yellow cards to South Africa’s seven penalties and one card.

In the critical last half-hour of the game, the period where England had been winning all of their matches up until the end of 2025, the penalty count was five-to-one with two extra yellows in favour of the home side.

As another of the recent ex-England scrum-half fraternity, Danny Care, explained on ITV: “That’s over 100 minutes of play now in six matches that England haven’t had 15 men on the field. You cannot expect to win Test matches against the big teams like that. They’ve conceded 95 points in [those] 100 minutes. So, over a full Test match, they’re playing with an arm behind their back. They really are. And England have to rectify that, and they have to do it very quickly

“Because, against [teams] like South Africa at Ellis Park, [they] simply won’t win, and that’s what we saw in the second half. The penalty count was two [penalties] for South Africa, nine for England in a Test match that was there to be won with three points in it.

“That, for me, is a difference at the moment between the first best team in the world and the sixth best team in the world. England have got a lot to do, but they’ve got to sort out their discipline. They’ve got to do it quickly.”

The problem was encapsulated at the start of the second half, when the failures in aerial combat and ill-discipline by England piggy-backed the Springboks from one end of the field to the other on two plays.

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 6, 2026

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— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) July 6, 2026

First another receipt by Murley is turned over on the deck by the Boks, then England inexplicably defend the lineout drive under the ‘old laws’ which have become redundant for the Nations Championship. Previously, the interpretation of maul defence allowed defenders who were ahead of the ball to affect the outcome of the play as long as they did not change their original bind. Eventually, these defenders could completely encircle the ball-carrier and suffocate release of the pill in the so-called ‘horseshoe defence’.

In the new version, defenders are required to retire behind the hindmost foot as soon as the ball moves beyond them and can no longer hang on around the edges. England number seven Tom Curry seems blissfully unaware he is on the wrong side despite repeated warnings by referee James Doleman, and a second penalty resulted in a 5m lineout from which South Africa scored a try two minutes later. It was the only example I could find in any of the six first-round games of zero adjustment to the new rules of combat at the maul.

The RFU review into England’s Six Nations concluded with the optimistic assertion “the way in which the team aspires to play was clear throughout the review”. That way may have been obvious to the review panel, but it is far less clear to supporters and students of the game, and worryingly, looks unsure to those on the field.

The England defence has now shipped 158 points in its past four games at an average of 40 points per game. The team which gave up more penalties and cards than any other side in the Six Nations conceded twice as many penalties as the Springboks at Ellis Park, while dropping to 13 men for the closing 10 minutes. Even Borthwick’s main article of faith, the kick-chase, is deteriorating game by game.

A peculiar fog hangs in the world of English rugby right now and the way out is mired in uncertainty.