Steve Borthwick’s role is coming under increasing scrutiny after he became the first England head coach to lose to Italy. England will have suffered four championship defeats in the same season for the first time in 50 years if they lose to France in Paris next week and the Borthwick project is coming under the microscope.
Among those concerned about the direction of the team, beaten 23-18 by opponents who had lost all 32 of the previous meetings between the countries, is the former British & Irish Lions winger Ugo Monye, a Guardian columnist, who said the result raised significant questions.
“The conversation about Borthwick’s future has to start now,” Monye told ITV Sport. “You look at the last couple of weeks. He gave faith to players before the loss to Ireland – then he rang a load of changes, and that didn’t work.
“France are top and tracking pretty well. Scotland are getting better. Italy are getting better. Wales are getting better. England are on the slide. How do you arrest it? It’s only ever one of two things. It’s the players or the coach. At the moment, I don’t think the potential of the players is being met by the vision of the coach.”
The result in Rome also meant England slipped down to sixth in the world rankings but Borthwick has brushed aside questions about his role and said he still believed he could guide his team to a brighter future. “It is tough right now, we are not hiding away from that fact,” said Borthwick. “We are not where we want to be in terms of results and in terms of performances.
“[But] the team’s growth in the last 12 months has been very, very strong and you can see the vision of where the team is going to be and you see the players coming through. Right now this is a tough period but what we will do is learn from it and make sure we are stronger going forward.”
Asked directly if he still felt he was the man to steer England to next year’s World Cup, Borthwick replied: “Absolutely,” and pointed out that form can swiftly improve. “The Six Nations before a World Cup we have seen it before with England teams. Go back to 2018 and the team was in a very good place the following year at the World Cup.
“The RFU, myself, Conor O’Shea and Bill Sweeney [the Rugby Football Union’s executive director of performance and chief executive respectively], we speak regularly and discuss the vision of the team going forward. We know the team have accelerated development over the last 12 months and also understanding that right now in this Six Nations there are going to be some tough challenges ahead. We have been very clear in the communication about the long-term vision of this England team.”
Borthwick did concede, however, that England’s discipline needed to improve. “We had seven yellow cards and a red card in four games. Ultimately that period of 60/65 minutes was the key turning point today. I think the team, up to that point, had done a lot of very good things and got themselves into a winning position and looked to be controlling the game very well.
“The standard of this competition, the opposition are so good. If you drop off a couple of per cent for a couple of minutes, then it hurts you and costs you a game. We’ve seen that again today.”
Maro Itoje, one of the two players sent to the sin-bin in the second half, was similarly downcast. “It’s obviously disappointing,” the captain said. “It’s on us as players. We have to wear the performance. This team over the last year has put in good performances. We haven’t recently. We have to face that and get back to work.
“We have to figure it out. If we knew why we wouldn’t be in this position. Teams go through tough periods. We’re in a tough period now. We’re in a results based business and we have to own the result. As captain I take responsibility for that.”
Italy’s captain, Michele Lamaro, praised his side’s resolve and collective spirit. “There are two main turning points. One in the first half when they scored their try. We stuck together when they got momentum and we were a wall. And straight after that we scored after that and the second yellow card. Imagine the celebrations in that dressing room. I’m not sure there is enough Frascati in all of Rome.”
