English rugby’s sunlit uplands were not immediately obvious at Twickenham on Monday lunchtime. It was a grey, cheerless day, hardly the ideal moment to be trumpeting the bright “new age” that the Rugby Football Union’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, kept referencing. As the rain lashed down and the wind howled across the deserted and damp concourse, it felt almost as if the end of the world was arriving early.
Inside the West Stand, though, an altogether more heartening scene was unfolding. Christmas may still be a few days away but Steve Borthwick sounded like a man who has already taken delivery of the gift he has long wanted. If the timing of the offer to become England’s head coach was slightly unexpected, there was no mistaking Borthwick’s excitement at assuming the role recently vacated by Eddie Jones.
