Three Six Nations challenges facing Steve Borthwick and England
It’s funny what a rummage through a box of some rugby memorabilia can unearth. It was November 2008 when England hosted the Pacific Islanders in London and a ball-carrying Steve Borthwick was the RFU’s official programme cover star.
This picture, which celebrated Borthwick’s 40th cap and his first Twickenham outing as captain of his country under Martin Johnson, wasn’t the thing that piqued the interest, though.
Instead, there was an interview inside in which the then 29-year-old explained: “There have been significant changes, both in the coaching team and in the playing squad, but when I look around me and see people with so many good ideas and so much desire to do well, it’s impossible not to feel excited about our potential.”
Sound familiar? Of course, it does. All these years later, Borthwick – now the 44-year-old head coach – is expressing similar-sounding sentiments as he prepares England for his second Guinness Six Nations tournament as head coach. Here, RugbyPass sets the scene ahead of next Saturday’s championship start away to Italy in Rome:
Repeated slow starts
First, a good omen. The two most recent Six Nations tournaments following a Rugby World Cup have both been won by England, with Eddie Jones delivering a Grand Slam in his maiden outing in 2016 after succeeding Stuart Lancaster and the Australian triumphant again four years later in the tournament that had an October finish due to the pandemic.
If the most recent World Cup is a reliable indicator of current status, the bronze medal England should be gamboling into 2024 as favourites to chalk up a hat-trick of post-World Cup Six Nations titles. Except they’re not.
As encouraging as England’s defiance was in their agonising last-minute World Cup semi-final loss to South Africa, even the most hardcore English fan must accept that Borthwick and co got lucky with a tournament draw that gave them Fiji in the quarters compared to Ireland and France – teams heavily backed to reach the final – colliding with the All Blacks and the Springboks in the last eight.
The Six Nations draw looks to have again played into England’s favour. Whereas the French are hosting the Irish first-up this Friday night in a Marseille blockbuster, Borthwick’s England are headed to the Eternal City for a fixture that no one can see them losing.
Having the Italians – who have never beaten England in the Six Nations – first-up is quite the tonic for the visitors who have frustratingly made a pig’s ear of their four most recent opening February fixtures, three successive losses to Scotland and an insipid effort away to France in 2020.
This 4L sequence reflects terribly on the calibre of their pre-tournament preparations and Borthwick has now pinned his hopes on England’s new winter base in Girona helping to effect the desired change in results.
Breaking this habit of losing first-up will be a nice test of Jamie George’s influence as the new captain. England are expected to win but, more importantly, they are expected to win with the type of flourish that will have fans skipping along to Twickenham the following weekend confident of doubling up versus Wales rather than fearing another day of drudgery at a London venue that has long lost its fortress reputation.
George has been savvy enough to recognise this troubling issue exists. “The stats don’t lie… the performances haven’t been good enough, especially our home form. To have that record at Twickenham is hugely disappointing,” he admitted before the squad flew to Spain.
“There are many things we can look at in terms of why we haven’t had such a fast start. That’s certainly something that has been wracking my brains over the last few weeks in terms of addressing the team.”
This is mental, I love football! It was so good to see Messi live ??? https://t.co/4d9JuLlHwj
— T O M M Y F R E E M A N (@TommyFreemo15) January 30, 2024
Borthwick’s player management
It was curious to hear the salesman description Borthwick gave last week of himself as an England head coach still trying to learn the ropes. “There is a lot of sales where there is a message and you are trying to get a message across,” he suggested in Dublin at the Six Nations media launch.
“As ever when someone is trusted trying to sell a message, people look at that with a bit of skepticism initially and there is a period I need to show utter belief and conviction in a plan, and over the period you start getting the small wins, you start getting small improvements and just little crumbs…”
Utter belief and conviction in a plan wasn’t a takeaway RugbyPass took from Six Nations 2023, the third season in succession in which England won just twice in five outings.
Borthwick’s revolving door at No10 – where he started the campaign with Marcus Smith at 10 and then moved Owen Farrell in from No12 for the next two games before dropping him versus France and recalling Smith only to then drop Smith again the following week in Ireland – said it all about the prevailing absence of ‘utter belief’.
In fairness, Borthwick ultimately managed to drag dull England to a World Cup semi-final but you have to wonder about his bruising player management at times. Look at how he gave Ollie Hassell-Collins successive starts at the beginning of his reign and the winger hasn’t been selected since.
A penny also for the thoughts of the now-recalled duo Alex Dombrandt and Henry Slade. While the England midfield admittedly defensively stood up at France 2023 without Slade, Billy Vunipola’s extravagant flop as the supposed Dombrandt upgrade at No8 was one of the stories of the World Cup as openside Ben Earl was instead thrust into an emergency repositioning that was far from planned.
A real sense of new
Borthwick used 34 players at the World Cup, and he has 36 with him in Girona just days out from Thursday’s trip across the Mediterranean for their round-one Italian job. Ten of the 20 forwards in Spain weren’t at France 2023 while 10 of the 16 backs are also different from the squad that made Le Touquet-Paris-Plage a real English home away from home at the finals.
Having just 16 of the 34 from the bronze medal campaign indicates a hefty overhaul and, on the surface, it is.
Drill down, though, and this impression of this wholesale overhaul isn’t what it seems.
Unless rookie Fin Smith is thrust into the limelight, the half-backs, front row and second row will all have familiar World Cup faces wearing the starting shirts at Stadio Olimpico. But things do get very interesting at back row, midfield and wing.
Just two of the seven France 2023 back-rowers – Earl and mid-tournament call-up Underhill – are up for Six Nations selection and it’s similar out the back where Elliot Daly and Freddie Steward are the sole two repeats in the 10 centre/back three options that Borthwick will deliberate over ahead of this Thursday’s starting team announcement.
New faces always spark energy and excitement amongst supporters of any sports team and this weekend surely is a perfect opportunity for Borthwick to provide evidence that he is indeed intent on evolving England and the style of turgid play that bored so many of their fans across his first year in charge.
ENGLAND’S 2024 SIX NATIONS SQUAD
Loosehead (3): Genge, Marler, *Obano – Missing from RWC 2023: Rodd (injured);
Tighthead (3): Cole, *Heyes, Start – Missing from RWC 2023: Sinckler (dropped);
Hooker (3): *Blamire, Dan, George – Missing from RWC 2023: Walker (dropped);
Lock (4): Chessum, *Coles, *Ewels, Itoje – Missing from RWC 2023: Martin (injured), Ribbans (ineligible);
Back row (7): *Cunningham-South, *Curry B, *Dombrandt, Earl, *Pearson, *Roots, Underhill – Missing from RWC 2023: Curry T (injured), Lawes (Test retirement), Ludlam (injured), Willis (ineligible), Vunipola (dropped);
Scrum-half (3): Care, Mitchell, Spencer – Missing from RWC 2023: Youngs (Test retirement);
Out-half (3): Ford, *F Smith, M Smith – Missing from RWC 2023: Farrell (Test sabbatical);
Midfield (4): *Dingwall, *Freeman, *Ojomah, *Slade – Missing from RWC 2023: Lawrence (injured), Marchant (ineligible), Tuilagi (injured);
Back three (6): Daly, * Feyi-Waboso, *Muir, *Furbank, *Roebuck, Steward – Missing from RWC 2023: Arundell (ineligible), Malins (dropped), May (Test retirement).
Comments on RugbyPass
Dickson went to his pocket for a card, saw who it was, changed his mind and spoke at length to TMO. One angle clearly shows Care diving over a Saints player to kill the ball. 1st yellow, reason given for not Red was player was falling backwards. He was only falling backwards after contact with Lawes. Graham try should have stood. Mitchell did not have both hands on the ball, ball went forward from a Saints boot dragging over it. 2 intentional knock-on's. One of which had an overlap on the outside. If Quins are happy to win by intentional foul play, then it does not say much for them. Would appear to be a bad day for Karl Dickson, also for the RFU in appointing a Ref who spent 8 years as a player at one of the clubs.
1 Go to commentsLet’s not forget about Ardie Savea just yet.
4 Go to commentsThe URC and the Euro Championscup can’t run at the same time, basically dilutes both competitions.
1 Go to comments“While Sotutu should start at No.8 for the All Blacks against England, but it’s only in that arena that he can prove just how good he really is.” And that my friends is where simply hasnt shone despite multiple opportunities. Even in this performance you can see what did him in in the test arena..he almost always still runs at the opposition almost ramrod upright making him easier to stop than it should be.
4 Go to commentsShould have been 0-0 and a message from SR CEO to both teams - “don’t worry about turning up next year”.
4 Go to commentsGreat work Owen Franks. A great of this team, scoring his first try for the Crusaders since 2010.He was beaming, justifiably. A fine win, he and the rest did the job up front.
1 Go to commentsDanny Care. Lang in die tand.
1 Go to commentsBig empty stadium does nothing for atmosphere but munster are playing well with solid performance
1 Go to commentsYes, Fiji can win the World Cup! With that belief plus their christian faith🙏 and hard work it is achievable. Great article. Ian Duncan Fiji resident 1981-84
2 Go to commentsInteresting comments about Touch. England’s hosting the Touch World Cup this year and the numbers have exploded since their last World Cup in 2019, something like 70% more teams and 40 nations taking part. And England Touch have made a big thing about how many universities are in their BUCS University Touch Championship as well as Sport England membership. Can only see this growing even more domestically as more people become aware of it
10 Go to comments“Cortez Ratima is light years ahead of anyone on current form, while TJ Perenara has also skyrocketed into contention following the unfortunate injury to the talented Cam Roigard.” At last some sanity. Hitherto so many pundits have been wittering on about Finlay Christie to the point one wondered if they were observing a FC in a parallel universe where the FC they saw wasnt just the mediocre Shayne Philpott project of Fosters hapless AB reign in the real world. Ratima, Perenara and Fakatava are the ONLY logical 9s for Razor now Roigard is crocked.
4 Go to commentsThis game was just as painful as the Hurricanes game. It was real fork-in-the-eye stuff.
4 Go to commentsNow if they could just fire the Crusaders ground PA guy who likes to play his dance music and just loves the sound of his own voice the entire game, even when play is going on. And I thought their brass band thing of a few years ago was bad.
5 Go to commentsUnfortunately when you lose by far the two form players this season in Roigard and Aumua, you're left replacing two game changing Tanks with a couple of pea-shooters. Which is also about the speed of TJs pass.
4 Go to commentsBit rich coming from the guy with zero loyalty to anyone or any team, including happily taking a players place in a league world cup squad because well, SBW wanted to play in it and thus an already named player got told he was no longer going. And airing stuff like this, which may or may not be true, doesn't exactly say you're a stand up guy either SBW. Just looking to keep his name in lights as usual.
38 Go to commentsTamati Tua. …the Taniwha NPC midfielder. Ollie Sapsford, Hawkes Bay NPC midfielder…doing well
4 Go to commentsFiji deserve to be in the rugby championship, fans love seeing the Fijian national team play, the Fijian Drua is a wonderful idea but the players can still be stolen to play for NZ and AUS…
2 Go to commentsThe first concern for this afternoon are wheather forecast…
1 Go to commentsWhy cant I watch Rugby games please?
1 Go to commentsBeautiful shot from Finau, end of story. Gutted for Shaun Stevenson though.
4 Go to comments