In the space of just seven days, the wheels have completely and utterly come off England’s Six Nations campaign.
After a 12-game winning streak, back-to-back losses to Scotland and Ireland have left Steve Borthwick and his players with huge questions to answer. It’s not just that England have suffered two straight defeats. It’s that the manner of the performances, namely the opening 20 minutes in both Edinburgh and at Twickenham on Saturday, have simply been nowhere near good enough.
England were awful against the Irish and their Championship – which they were supposed to be title contenders for – has now gone up in smoke. The Ireland loss means England now can’t win the Six Nations and their wait for the title will extend to six years. The last time England lifted the trophy was 2020. That’s simply not good enough for a team of England’s calibre and resource.
Whenever I suffered setbacks in my time as coach, my phrase would be: ‘Back to basics.’ And there can be no doubt it is very much back to the drawing board for this England team. It is hard to put your finger on why England have gone from an outfit capable of winning 12 straight matches to one which has produced such poor performances in the past week.
As head coach, Borthwick must ask tough questions of himself, his coaches and his players. They will all come in for an immense out of criticism now and rightly so.
For me, England’s mindset is all wrong. That much is clear from their poor starts. They do not play quickly enough to trouble the best teams in world rugby. In their 12-match winning streak, England didn’t just beat a bunch of no-hopers. They downed a strong Argentina team without their best players last summer and in the autumn, were too good for an Australia side who beat the Lions and New Zealand who remain packed with threats. I think it was right Borthwick’s team got praise for that streak. Was it too much praise? Perhaps. But there can be no doubt the past two weeks have shown England are nowhere near as good a team as perhaps they and we as followers of the team all thought they were. I include myself in that. It’s inexcusable to start matches as England have in their last two outings.
Steve Borthwick must ask tough questions of his players, his staff, and himself after defeat to Ireland on Saturday
England’s chances of the championship were snuffed out in a dismal showing at Twickenham
Against Ireland – who were absolutely superb by the way – England were all at sea defensively. Ireland cut them to pieces in attack. Borthwick’s men were hugely ill disciplined again, with yellow cards for Freddie Steward and Henry Pollock.
Once again, their big-name players underperformed badly.
There can be no doubt that Borthwick has done a good job since taking charge. He is still the right man for the role as England head coach. While the past two defeats have been hugely disappointing, it is far, far too early to question Borthwick’s position.
But what he must do is use the pain he and his team are experiencing now as a force for good. I would strongly advise Borthwick to make changes for Italy.
That is going to be a really, really tricky game for England now on the back of their past two results. Italy are a vastly improved team on past tournaments and they will really fancy taking on England now.
I was at Twickenham on Saturday and George Furbank came into the same hospitality box as me. I’d never met Furbank before, but he came over and said: ‘Thanks for picking me.’ I’ve been consistent in saying that Furbank has to be England’s full-back. He must be in the team at No 15 over Freddie Steward.
That’s the first change I’d make for Italy. Fin Smith is also now a strong contender to come in at No 10 to start ahead of George Ford. That said, selection decisions aren’t going to change a huge amount for England. Borthwick has a huge amount of quality players at his disposal, it’s just that as a collective, they simply haven’t performed. Sometimes, that happens.
Borthwick is a very calm and composed character, so he won’t be ranting and raving in the next week. That’s just his mantra. Many would believe shouting and screaming in the right way to respond to this hugely significant setback but that is not the nature of modern professional sport.
Players don’t respond well to that these days.
George Furbank must be brought into the team to face Italy – but selection changes won’t solve all of England’s problems
While England have gone from hero to zero, Ireland have gone the other way.
As bad as the home side were, the men in green were just fantastic from one to 15. Ireland played brilliant rugby. Their forwards totally outplayed England. Caelan Doris, their No 8 and captain, was superb and Jamison Gibson-Park ran the show from No 9. Gibson-Park was a cut above the rest and totally deserving of his player of the match award. Rumours of Ireland’s great demise have now clearly been proven to be exaggerated.
They showed England how good they are, exposing the mental and tactical weaknesses in Borthwick’s team at the same time.
One thing that I thought summed up the difference between the teams was the respective coaches.
Andy Farrell has clearly now bounced back from any distractions he had to his Ireland role while he was coaching the Lions. Alongside him, he has two Irish icons in Johnny Sexton and Paul O’Connell and another fine coach in Simon Easterby who is the most experienced of that assistant trio.
Farrell’s use of Sexton and O’Connell is very, very canny. They’re essentially the Jonny Wilkinson and Martin Johnson of English rugby. I’d love England to make use of their ex-professionals like Ireland did.
It is going to be a long two weeks now for England until the trip to Rome.
They are not all of a sudden a bad side. But the truth is in the past week they have plumbed depths I didn’t think this team was possible of hitting.
That’s tough to say but is also the truth.
There’ll be some deep soul searching in the England camp over the next few days.
This team can and must respond to these setbacks.
