Steve Borthwick confronts the question many England fans are asking

England head coach Steve Borthwick has admitted that his side “don’t necessarily want to play” the way they did in their 16-15 Guinness Six Nations victory over Scotland, but has insisted the team are “evolving”.

Despite only scoring one try to Scotland’s three at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium, England found a way to win by a one-point margin for the second match in a row after a year of performances where they were making a habit of falling on the wrong side of the scoreboard.

But in the wake of the victory, many England fans have questioned their style of play, with former captain Will Carling describing the kick-heavy win as “very ugly” on X. Ex-England fly-half Andy Goode even said that he thinks the side are being “held back” currently. “Great to get the win for England,” he wrote on X. “I genuinely think there’s an exciting team in that squad being held back by Steve Borthwick and the inexperienced coaching team.”

Borthwick has however asserted that Scotland brought the perfect gameplan to disrupt England, and only needed to highlight their round two bonus-point victory over France as an example of the attacking capabilities England have.

“I’d suggest in the previous game we played very, very well,” he said after the match. “Pretty good attack, scored four tries against France.

“Today, Scotland brought a very, very smart tactical plan. The way to set-up to play against England, generally, is to play limited phase and put the kick on to England and ultimately in the first half they had the ascendency but in the second half the players gradually figured it out and found different ways to get an advantage and got up on the scoreboard.

“These are good teams we’re playing against. There are two teams out there and we are really respectful of the opposition. There are times where you’re in the ascendency and there are times where they are and you have to maximise your opportunities and minimise theirs.

“Each of these games has been very different. What pleases me is I think the team’s evolving. We don’t necessarily want to play the way we played today. We want the ball in hand, we want to move the ball. We’ve got a whole lot of creative talent. But Scotland are trying to stop you from doing that, and they did it really well. But we found a way to win and we’ll make sure we’re better for this experience.”