Steve Borthwick plays up England as underdogs angle ahead of Six Nations clash with Ireland

No less than Ireland, the England squad have had their upheavals since last year’s Six Nations. Whatever the reality may be compared to the perception, to lose three members of a backroom team, including two high-profile characters just a year into a World Cup cycle, is not a good look.

In the wake of losing strength and conditioning coach Tom Tombleson after 10 years with the set-up, the popular head of S&C Aled Walters stepped last August to join Ireland. In the same month Felix Jones surprised the English management and RFU by tendering his resignation as defence coach, after the former Munster fullback had introduced a South African-infused blitz defence.

Jones remained under contract until his departure was confirmed in a terse, 22-word statement by the RFU in January, when the handsomely paid, under-fire chief executive Bill Sweeney was moved to publicly declare the players’ full faith in the English environment under Borthwick.

Borthwick appointed Joe El-Abd as defence coach, meaning the new man would combine his England responsibilities with his director of rugby role at Oyonnax until the end of the season. Irishman Dan Tobin was brought in to replace Tombleson after working at Gloucester as head of performance for the last eight years. Previously, he had spent a decade at Leinster and has also worked for the Dublin senior football team.

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Another Irishman, Phil Morrow, was then eventually hired as senior men’s head of team performance, thereby replacing Walters, after previous attempts had been blocked. Morrow was previously head of the Ulster S&C department before becoming the IRFU’s head of fitness, and was then one of Mark McCall’s key appointments soon after he took up his role as director of rugby at Saracens in 2011. McCall has described Morrow as “the best in his field”.

Morrow’s appointment caused some controversy when it was first touted last October, with Premiership clubs initially rejecting the move on the grounds of “conflict of interest”. But Morrow is set to leave Saracens at the end of the 2024/25 season.

Much has also been made of England only winning two of their last eight Tests, and both were against Japan. Yet dig deeper than those statistics and they had winning opportunities when losing their Six Nations finale 33-31 against France in Lyon, and in losing both Tests to New Zealand, by 16-15 and 24-17.

Then, in the Autumn Nations Series, they lost to the All Blacks at Twickenham when George Ford missed a penalty and a drop goal to win the game, and they really ought to have beaten Australia too before Max Jorgensen’s late try snatched a 42-37 win for the Wallabies.

Even so, Borthwick enthusiastically embraced England’s apparent role as underdogs at Tuesday’s Six Nations launch in Rome, ahead of them pitching up at the Aviva Stadium in their opening match on Saturday week. It is as if England beating Ireland in last season’s dramatic round four game at Twickenham by 23-22, courtesy of Marcus Smith’s drop goal with the last kick, has been erased from Borthwick’s memory.

“Different game. A different game now,” Borthwick countered dismissively. “You look at the way the England team has changed over the last six months after that point in time, you see the new caps we’ve got in our team, it’s very different.

Marcus Smith of England celebrates scoring the winning drop goal against Ireland with teammates at Twickenham. Photograph: Julian Finney/Getty

“You start looking at what Ireland have, you know, 1,100 caps in the team, they’re going to have an average age probably somewhere around 28/29 and what are England going to have? We’re going to have an average age of 25, number of caps maybe 650/700.

“And you’ve got an Ireland team that’s been one of the best teams in the world for so many years now, so well coached. This is a different context where we’re at, at this point in time.”

Nonetheless, although England only won with the last kick of the game, it felt like there was an inevitability about that score. England’s clever counter-attacking, power game and dominance of possession made it Ireland’s most uncomfortable game in last season’s Six Nations game, and it provides Borthwick and Co a template.

“We’re very conscious that we’re playing one of the best sides in the world. I’ve studied them, I’ve watched Leinster and you look at Leinster this season, their results, where clearly it’s a such a huge contingent of the Ireland team.

“They’ve just been in so many ways incredible and [in them] you see the strength of Irish rugby,” added Borthwick.

“I think it [Ireland] is a team that keeps getting stronger. Now we know it’s a great challenge. We’re going to have to be very, very good. We’re also ready to jump in. We want to really jump into this game. This England team which we’ve got, I think it’s got a huge amount of potential for the future and what we want to do is jump into these contests we’ve got at the start of the Six Nations.”

Borthwick sounded like a coach still trying to buy time after being parachuted in to replace Eddie Jones ahead of the last World Cup, and so therefore is leading England into the Six Nations for a third time.

Nor was he remotely inclined to see Ireland’s lineout as vulnerable, despite this being something of a problem area since the last World Cup.

“I think they’ve got phenomenal jumpers. You look at James Ryan and [Tadhg] Beirne, they’re being coached by Paul O’Connell. This is an excellent forward pack.”