Steve Borthwick has insisted the Rugby Football Union’s vote of confidence has not put him on notice and that he is ready to fight for his future when he reviews England’s Six Nations campaign with the chief executive, Bill Sweeney.
Borthwick has recalled Ollie Chessum to his starting lineup for the daunting trip to France on Saturday but otherwise kept faith with the underfire players who suffered England’s first defeat by Italy last weekend. The head coach has also made it clear that he expects his senior leaders – Maro Itoje, Ellis Genge and Jamie George – to step up in Paris as England seek to avoid their worst Six Nations campaign.
After the defeat last Saturday, Sweeney took unprecedented action when issuing a statement before the championship was over, offering Borthwick qualified support but making clear improvements were needed against France as well as in the summer Nations Championship fixtures against South Africa, Fiji and Argentina.
The RFU also demanded “open” dialogue with Borthwick and his coaches in the coming weeks and will hold what is sure to be an uncomfortable review in an attempt to address England’s rapid decline. Borthwick, however, insisted Sweeney’s statement had not ramped up the pressure before the trip to Paris on Saturday.
“In a job such as this one there is always that expectation and pressure,” he said. “The expectation I put upon myself to help us deliver is always the greatest and the highest it possibly can be. Is this where we wanted to be? No, absolutely not. I shared at the start of the tournament where I wanted us to be. Unfortunately the performances in the couple of games that followed were not at the required level.”
Asked if Sweeney’s statement had given Borthwick a timeframe in which to save his job, the head coach said: “We want to win every game England go into, that is always my aspiration and nothing has changed from that and nothing will change from that. The focus has been playing against France and putting in the best performance we can.
“I speak with Conor O’Shea [the director of performance] on a daily basis, Bill Sweeney at least once or twice every week, and the vision of the team, the journey of the team, what we’re trying to do with the team, that’s been shared comprehensively over the last period of time and we’re all disappointed. This is not where we wanted to be. It’s not where we thought we could be and we all share that hurt and disappointment, along with our supporters.”
In the RFU statement, Sweeney said: “We will work together to understand and rectify why we have been unable to meet the expectations and anticipation going into these games.” Borthwick already believes he has identified “commonalities” that he will use to explain England’s demise, highlighting ill discipline – they have been shown eight yellow cards in four matches – as well as their failure to convert chances as reasons for their collapse. He also lamented injury absences, having been without Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and Fin Baxter all tournament.
“In terms of the areas, I’m pretty clear on what needs to be addressed and how we need to address it,” Borthwick said. “There are a couple of commonalities you can see straight away.
“One, in every game we have played with men down, the number of cards has been at an unacceptable level. The second factor will be the lack of tries. And I know that sounds so basic, but when you create as many opportunities and [you are] not scoring tries, it’s pretty stark.
“It’s very clear they’re two big reasons for it. So what we do is that when you have that clarity of going: ‘Right, this is what we need to improve.’ A little bit of personnel will help. Hopefully there are other players to come back to fitness. But clearly we need to make sure we score more tries on Saturday and subsequently.”
Borthwick also explained how he expected Itoje, George and Genge to set the tone this weekend. Itoje produced his best performance of a trying campaign against Italy but was shown a costly second-half yellow card. He was also involved in a disagreement with Fin Smith over whether to kick for the corner or at goal. Borthwick backed his captain over that exchange, saying: “Maro stood up in front of the team today. We’ve got a team that has got multiple Lions players, players with over 100 England caps, some over 50 England caps. We’ve got a young group as well. This is one of those games where the senior players really step forward. That’s what I expect them to do this weekend.”
