Steve Borthwick hammers home glaring England shortcoming

So if you review the 6N’s, hopefully ENG shortcomings will reveal;

1. Ineffective game tactics with an over reliant kicking strategy

2. Poor squad & matchday selection (hence the number of changes throughout) and over reliance on the wrong players (Ford, Steward etc)

3. You have to question the drop in defence and if that is down to the recent change in coaching? Do we have a capable person in charge with the required experience at this level? Why did our tackle numbers and tackle completion drop so dramatically this 6N’s - what changed?

4. The injuries did have an impact but yesterday proved we still had the players to cope, so was due to muddled tactics & selection rather than injuries.

5. Are the yellow cards because we don’t trust our defence? Why have we gone from 1 Y/C last season to 8 this year? What’s causing this?

6. Tactical substitutions were poor throughout - why so slow with player changes?

7. Why did we lose scrum dominance once Rodd & Davison came on. How does this relate to item 2?

Start to answer those and you will start to unlock the issues this 6N’s.

I get that Lions fatigue and injuries have been an issue but yesterday conformed we had the players available to compete if you picked them and played the right tactics, so the real question should be why it took us so long to realise this, which ultimately comes back on the coaching group.

These are the questions the review should be asking.

“… blaming England’s poor discipline.”

And when you see the so-called ‘next coming of the rugby messiah’, Boris-haired Bollock, get roundly booed by the French crowd when he comes on, then proving why with his attitude you can only agree with him. Yet another Pom Posh Boy.

England have always had a disciplinary issue, but yes it's down to borthwick to address this, but there inability to close a match down is also an issue,

The attack stats in the (article) table are fairly close, the real difference was defence, where FRA put in an extra 20 odd tackles in defence, with slightly higher tackle completion, so they out worked us in defence, which was probably the key difference between the sides.

ENG really struggled to get over the line from 5m out, whereas that improved once the subs came on and CC-S added a lot more momentum.

Bring in Michael Cheika, or Phil Dowson.

I don’t think there’s a third option.

When you look at the Six Nations Team statistics, there are a few areas that stand out.

Points scored - (153 total) ENG were 2nd

Number of tackles - (635, 127 ave) ENG were 6th (worst)

Tackle completion - (77%) ENG were 6th (worst)

2nd most points scored (153), with 2nd most conceded (151) - explains why they came 5th placed with only 1 win.

The defence was poor throughout and was absolutely awful when ENG went down to 14, which is the thing that cost us this tournament. This was not a good campaign for our new rookie coach teaching defence.

Put it another way, we were over 150 tackles short of most other teams over the 5 games, so we are 30 tackles per game short of the best 6 Nations teams and we were 60 tackles per game lower than the Autumn.

Given there’s usually 20 mins attacking time per game, it says our defence was 3 tackles per minute lower than what we did in the Autumn.

From where ENG were in the Autumn, this entire campaign has been a complete disaster.

Our defence went from world class to remotely average and fragile. We were shredded with ease out wide and when we went down to 14 we fell apart. How did we go from 190 tackles at 90% tackle completion in the Autumn to the lowest tackle content in the tournament (635 - 125 tackles ave during 6N’s) and the worst tackle completion rate 77.7%.

SO - we went from world class defence in the Autumn to the worst in the 6N’s this season.

The coach got it so wrong he had to change the entire tactics and back line selection over 5 games.

. . . . So the thing he points out as the major issue was discipline.

I think Steve needs a bit more self reflection on the above to find a better balance.

Given how it is clear the tactics & selection have been a key issue, I think Borthwick needs to be a bit more honest and accept his part in this process.

The tactics have been poor, selection was a total mistake in the backs and defence went from world class in the Autumn to being average by the 6N’s, alongside the discipline issues (which is where our defence fell apart going down to 14 players).

That’s a fairly tough list to deal with that says Head, Coach, Head Coach, defence coach & players were the 4 key areas of failure this campaign.

I think the discipline issue, whilst a factor, might actually be a Richard Wigglesworth shaped red herring.

Because if we look behind it’s fishy outline we’ll see the actual cause of our issues are an awful defence.

Its obvious that the players have no faith in it, and I wonder if that’s a contributory factor in their making desperate and stupid decisions to not get it exposed?

Throughout the history of the modern game we’ve seen teams with brilliantly coached defensive systems whereby, because the players have absolute faith in said system, they are comfortable letting the opposition have the ball, confident in their ability to shut down whatever is thrown at them.

If a team has zero confidence in their defensive systems they’ll do most anything to avoid the opposition getting the ball, including slap downs, deliberate knock ons, maul collapses etc, because they know all the opposition has to do to cut them, is have possession.

This makes the decision to kick at key points even more bewildering (I’m looking at you JVP)

In addition, a well coached and effective defensive system often has no problem accommodating a yellow or red card (NZ 2023 World Cup) and for me it has been a huge red flag that Englands defense has been so porous with a man in the bin.

Its Wigglesworth, and by proxy, Steve borthwick to blame.

Borthwick does realise he is the coach and that training the team to play with discipline is part of his and his team’s role. While the players have conceded the pens and cards, you have to question why the coaching staff haven’t acted on this over the past six weeks, and if they have why hasn’t it yielded any change in behaviour

It was a great game , Like the whole series, These are professional teams, big coaching groups, surely they develop plans around the referee, they are human and team analysis should prepare plans on the individual and be ready for the expected differences, A Gardner is now one of the best around

This was Englands for the taking. They owned large parts of the game. Genge yellow was a killer. 21 points. But a 10 that missed three conversions, offered no threat and did not know how to close out the game - that undid England. Why on earth did the 9 kick with 2 to go. Believe it or not Ford missed by England today.

Yeah if Pollock didn’t try to kick it , England win, but what a fantastic game. If England play like that they can beat anyone including the boks. I would just build on that and keep the current coaching team. France are a fantastic side and deserved the championship.

Perhaps the big, convincing performance under ‘borthers’ - the performance they had in them. The performance they needed since last autumn when it was officially a ‘grand slam decider’.

They still lost

Please, please stick with him. Trust the process. Steve knows things.

Probably

At this level a yellow regularly costs between 10-15 points. And when is key - losing at 40-60 mins is a death knell for most teams. Momentum key and shift massive as happened today. The up side is England showed today they are a serious threat to the top teams.