Steve Borthwick hammers home glaring England shortcoming

England head coach Steve Borthwick had no hesitation pinpointing England’s major problem this Guinness Six Nations following his side’s narrow defeat to France, blaming England’s poor discipline.

England fell to France 48-46 at the Stade de France in the final match of the Championship, with a Thomas Ramos penalty in the final play of the game breaking English hearts a delivering Les Bleus the title.

The visitors looked unrecognisable from the side that had lost to Scotland, Ireland and Italy in the Championship, showing an attacking edge that has been lacking all year.

One theme that remained, however, was that England had to play a period of the match with 14 players following Ellis Genge’s yellow card at the end of the first half. Including the penalty try that was awarded as a result of the prop’s collapsed maul, France scored 21 points while England were down to 14 men.

England had received two cards per match heading into the final round, so while this was actually a step forward for the side, Borthwick still rues the lapses in discipline that have cost his side throughout the tournament.

Borthwick even saw his side down to 13 men at one stage in the historic loss to Italy, with the Azzurri clawing their way back to win with that advantage.

France, of course, were down to 14 men late on due to a Demba Bamba yellow card, and that itself looked as though it could have cost Les Bleus the match, but England’s discipline has been an all-too-common theme all Championship for the England boss.

“I’ll be very clear, our discipline needs to be better,” he said after the match. “We need to keep 15 men on the pitch. Teams are so good that when you drop numbers, it makes life very, very hard.

“When we’ve kept 15 players on the pitch, we look like a very good team. Unfortunately, when we’ve been down to 14 or 13 men as in some cases, we’ve been punished and the opposition have taken their chances.”

Borthwick did query some of the decisions in the defeat, notably the decision to yellow card Genge as well as a dubious knock-on from Francois Cros, which he labelled as “confusing”.