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Steve Borthwick loses long-time backroom ally to Springboks

Steve Borthwick/ PA

The Springboks have hired former England, Scarlets and Ospreys staff member Joe Lewis as their performance analyst.

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The Welshman served as England’s head analyst under Eddie Jones between 2017 and 2021, and has been senior analyst for the last four years under Steve Borthwick.

Lewis, whose last game with England was the defeat to France in the Six Nations, becomes the second former RFU employee to jump ship and join the Springboks, after Felix Jones returned to the world champions as defence coach after a short stint at Twickenham.

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“We are delighted to welcome Joe to the Springbok team,” said Rassie Erasmus, Springbok head coach.

“Given his vast experience in technical and performance analysis at international and club level, we believe he will add great value to the squad as we prepare for a busy and exciting season, and further ahead to the 2027 RWC.

“His roles have seen him gain invaluable experience at the highest level of the game – at the 2019 Rugby World Cup, in the Six Nations competition, and Autumn Nations Cup, among other big tournaments, and we have no doubt he’ll slot into our set-up seamlessly.”

Lewis joins the Springboks in time for a bumper year of Test fixtures.

The Springboks will kick off their 2026 campaign against the Barbarians in Gqeberha on Saturday, 20 June, before beginning the inaugural Nations Championship competition against England in Johannesburg (4 July), Scotland in Pretoria (11 July), and Wales in Durban (18 July).

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They meet Argentina in Buenos Aires (8 August), and the All Blacks in four Tests in the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Tour in August and September.

This will be followed by an away Test against the Wallabies in Australia (27 September). The second leg of the Nations Championship kicks off in Europe at the end of the year, with matches against Italy (7 November), France (13 November), and Ireland (21 November), before the Finals Weekend in London (27 to 29 November).

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Comments

10 Comments
P
PMcD 1 hr ago

My mistake 🙄

f
fl 1 hr ago

did you comment this on the wrong article?

P
PMcD 1 hr ago

It just keeps building the picture that ENG is not such a happy camp under Borthwick. Very strange for someone like that to jump ship after such a long tenure.

L
Lofty 49 mins ago

I guess he can now sign another one of his inexperienced pals like Wiggy and Joe. They seem to be the only people who stay with him !!

f
fl 2 hours ago

To be fair, literally none of us have any idea how significant this is.


Doesn’t sound great for England, but I’m sure that if you’d asked most Springboks fans a week ago to estimate how good England’s analysis team was, they’d have assumed mostly negative things!

U
Uther 2 hours ago

I don’t think it’s a great idea to ask anything to obnoxious SA fan boys.


Anyway, as you say, we have no idea what may be the consequences of this but the continuous turn over in coaching staff is certainly not a good sign.

H
Hammer Head 2 hours ago

Hilarious

D
DP 3 hours ago

well well well…

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