LONG READ Mick Cleary: Five reasons for Steve Borthwick to be cheerful

While doubt and uncertainty furrow the brows of coaching set-ups in Wales, Scotland and even Ireland, as we countdown towards the 2026 Six Nations, Steve Borthwick can lick his lips at a favourable fixture list and an energised team riding high on an 11-game unbeaten run. Indeed, after dismal failure in Australia for England’s cricketers, the rugby fanbase is starting to believe the current crop could achieve something special Down Under in 21 months for myriad reasons…

England now have a sense of purpose and identity that was absent 12 months ago

You might, of course, not be able to tell if Steve Borthwick were cheerful or not as he and his team enter 2026 but that implacability has become a measure of the side itself – able to ride the rough patches, never getting too excitable and yet finding a way to win when the going gets tough. Dead bat, give-‘em-nowt, focus. France pipped by a point in last season’s Six Nations, Los Pumas held at bay as the year was rounded off with an 11th successive victory. Deadpan Borthwick may still not get revved up on the emotional shoutometer but his team has most definitely evolved from the kick n’clap, one trick shire horses of the early regime, taking no risks and giving little pleasure, even in victory. Borthwick Mk.2025 gave us plenty of vim and variety, allowing free rein also to the more expressive of the tribe in the likes of an Earl or a Pollock.

England have been liberated, not on some daft Bazball anarchic quest but towards playing with freedom and self-expression. Crucially, they play with responsibility too. The game is the thing not some self-absorbed mission to lay waste to everything. Post RWC 2019, Eddie Jones challenged his team ‘to be the greatest ever.’ Why? How did that work out for Eddie? It’s about winning the next game. England now have what Ben Stokes cricket team have never had – momentum. They are far from the finished article but they know what they are about. A year ago they had no discernible shape or identity. We now feel like we know how they are going to perform. And that is a good place to be as they prepare to meet Wales at Twickenham on the opening match of the championship.

The competition for places is white-hot

It’s hard not to seek comparisons with the calamity that is the Ashes. England cricket may have an abundance of skilled players at their disposal but they exist in a comfort zone. There is almost zero competition for places. And that sense of safety leads to slackness and smugness, self-defeating introspection where there is no internal questioning. It’s Bazball or the Highway. Borthwick’s approach is more open-ended and open-minded, even though England Rugby has also gone down the route of a form of central contracting. The players know, though, that it they don’t perform they will be dropped. The system in rugby may not be perfect but it is starting to deliver a pathway of talent. Look at what has been a problem position in recent years – the central midfield. Even if it’s been partly through injury and mishap, England now have a raft of contenders: perm any two from Fraser Dingwall, Max Ojomoh, Seb Atkinson, Ollie Lawrence, Henry Slade with a mention in dispatches for the likes of Will Joseph, Luke Northmore, Oscar Beard or the returning Joe Marchant. Competition keeps players on their toes, knowing that they have to hit consistent standards of excellence.

Finally England have struck found the perfect balance in the coaching ranks

The Lee Blackett factor has come good. No longer do England appear to be pushing square pegs into round coaching holes. There is little doubt that the upheaval triggered by the abrupt departures of Felix Jones and Aled Walters as the 2024 autumn campaign hoved  into view has taken a good while to settle. The double-whammy exits were not just a loss of high-level coaching ability. The suddenness of it, allied to an absence of plausible explanation, indicated a lack of faith in the set-up. If England were going places then why were these two going to other, different places? No amount of PR spin managed to shrug off the notion that something was not right behind the scenes. Yet now there is a deep-rooted sense of people pulling in the same direction, coach and player alike.

Blackett has been a plum capture – fitting reward for his unstinting and under-recognised efforts on the club circuit for many a year – and his nuanced, empowering approach dovetails well with the input of Richard Wigglesworth, Joe El-Abd, Byron McGuigan, Tom Harrison and Kevin Sinfield. All bases appear to be covered. The all-conquering All Black team of a decade ago may well have had individual on-field icons such as Richie McCaw and Dan Carter to inspire them to greatness but they had been nurtured down the years by a trio of equally accomplished coaches in Graham Henry, Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen. Ditto the Rassie Springbok regime. England are laying claim to having coaching Intellectual Property of equal standing. For sure, they have more to prove but they are all on the same page and making a difference.

The upcoming fixture list plays to England’s strengths

Just as the doctor ordered – a Six Nations schedule with three away fixtures before heading to South Africa in the summer for the fixture that will define the year. England have deservedly picked up accolades for their rousing run of results and even though that sequence included a couple of notable wins against the Pumas in Argentina, this England generation need to earn their spurs on the road before we can pass absolute judgement on their prospects for the World Cup in Australia in 2027. Murrayfield will be a challenge in its own fiery Bannockburn sort of way while the mid-March championship finale in Paris will tell us much about England’s ability not just to punt for silverware but to bring home the bounty if, indeed, a trophy is on the line. But the Springboks are the litmus test, all the more so at Ellis Park with its altitude and bear-baiting atmosphere. Clive Woodward challenged his team to deliver against the southern hemisphere. Their run of 12 successive wins started with victory in Bloemfontein in 2000 and culminated in glory on a Sydney podium three years later. Borthwick couldn’t have wished for a better itinerary.

England’s coaching pathway has produced a golden generation of talent

There are plenty of places where our radar could alight – Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, who will yearn for an injury-free year, an obvious threat on the go-forward but still a relative novice, or Tommy Freeman who has already hit the heights with his try-scoring feats, or Ellis Genge as the talisman of the forward pack – but let’s focus first on an emerging back-row forward. No, not the eye-catching, in-your-face-one, Henry Pollock, despite the fact that he has lived up to the (self-generated) hype but the glue that is Guy Pepper, a latter-day Richard Hill in so much of what he does.

Like Hill, as important a player as any in that 2003 World Cup-winning side, Johnson, Wilkinson, whoever, Pepper goes about his business without fuss or favour. He grafts hard, he reads the game, he does what needs to be done. He is not the flashiest but he is one of the most essential operators out there. It’s not as if England don’t have plenty of options in the back-row. But, as noted above, this fierce competition for places, means that standards rise across the board. Pepper is the proof of that.