Borthwick’s future has been the subject of much speculation in recent weeks (Photo: Getty)
When the Rugby Football Union paid a million pounds to buy Steve Borthwick and his assistant coaches out of their contracts at Leicester Tigers two years ago they wanted, almost literally, a “steady Eddie”.
Borthwick was the safe, succession-planning candidate in a country much better known for panicky appointments, a trustworthy and sober antidote to the confusion and rancour under Eddie Jones.
The new man had gained experience under Jones in various jobs for nine years – although that period does not look so flash if you consider Jones to be a bullying dictator, as Danny Care recently suggested, but let’s not digress so quickly – and was widely rated as a good forwards coach who could graft on expert sidekicks in other areas and let them help him to help England.
So, the weirdest aspect of where England stand under Borthwick now, 26 Test matches and an underwhelming 12 wins later, is no one knows for sure.
The safe-hands choice has become the slippery fingers, with one close result after another going the way of England’s opposition.
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Changes in the backroom staff are still happening, the blitz defence is wobbling under a new assistant coach in Joe El-Abd (an old mate of Borthwick’s borrowed from lowly French club Oyonnax), and there were screams of anger around Twickenham when it looked as if fly-half Marcus Smith was going to be substituted last Saturday.
In fact Smith was moved to full-back, as George Ford came on, but even that is a tactic well short of universal acceptance.
The RFU, for their part, are cutting Borthwick the reasonable slack of having parachuted him in six months before they originally planned to do so (which was the summer of 2023, not December 2022), and they reckon the losses to New Zealand and Australia so far this month could easily have gone the other way.
But the world champions South Africa are next into Twickenham, this Saturday, followed by the easy-beats – at least they should be – of Japan to close the Test year out.
Borthwick could be looking at 13 wins in 28 matches for his two-year tenure, and only three of those wins against teams ranked above England’s seventh place: Argentina twice in the 2023 World Cup and Ireland at Twickenham last March.
In a devil’s advocate exercise of wondering where the national team would stand if Borthwick was suddenly no longer there, would the English rugby public feel miserably bereft?
An avid advocate of Borthwick’s would point to circumstances beyond his control.
Half a dozen possible starters are off limits by playing for clubs in France, and Joe Marler – whose scrummaging would definitely have been used against the Springboks this week – has just chucked in Test rugby.
Marcus Smith has caught the eye this autumn (Photo: Getty)
Pull the England lens out further, and coaches from Sir Clive Woodward through to Jones have argued the talent is spread too thinly at the clubs. And, by the RFU’s admission, the youth pathway was badly managed in recent years.
If you pulled at these threads hard enough, you could just possibly argue Borthwick is doing well to get such a tune out of this team that they are running the top teams close, time and again.
But it’s also November and as sure as the leaves flutter loose from the trees, the memory flits back to 2003 and England’s one and only winning of the World Cup.
Martin Johnson wouldn’t have permitted (or at least admitted to) “the foot off the gas”, as Jamie George said happened against the Australians last Saturday.
The 2003 team wouldn’t have taken Jonny Wilkinson off, even though his drop-goal radar was off-beam at first during the famous Sydney final.
The 2003 team didn’t have a bunch of players absent in France, although Wilkinson eventually headed that way once the biggest deed was done.
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On the flipside, let’s note two salient points: a main face of 2003, Lawrence Dallaglio, who is never adverse to a critical view, has just written in The Sunday Times that the current team had “a lot of therapy and repair work required to heal the wounds” of the regime under Jones.
And while the 2003 side kept on closing out tight matches, it was only after a long period in which they missed Grand Slams with a headline-grabbing cock-up, year after year.
Through that prism, Borthwick is entitled to ask for leeway with an eye on the World Cup of 2027.
Right now for England, it comes back to a game plan the coaches and players trust, and have the ability to deliver.
While South Africa have perfected the gig of physical dominance, Borthwick is trying for an all-court game based on aggressive defence and heads-up attack.
He has not been shy of picking form players – and now he’s had the bad luck to lose Immanuel Feyi-Waboso to concussion – although everyone has their snubbed favourites, and mine up to now would include the Bath forward, Ted Hill.
Intriguingly for the first time after the muddle of Saturday, Borthwick accused the players of going off-script (and that’s a qualified “accused” as he is always so even in his tone), and that must be arrested.
Let’s leave 2003 and this week wish Borthwick a dab of autumn 2012, when the England team coached by Stuart Lancaster had just lost to Australia and South Africa at Twickenham, by six points and one, respectively.
Next at Twickenham were the reigning world champions, New Zealand, unbeaten in 20 Tests.
Looking back, you knew what you were getting from an England midfield of Owen Farrell, Brad Barritt and Manu Tuilagi, and each of them delivered in one of the all-time great wins.
But very few, if any, were predicting that beforehand.
So there is hope if England pick round pegs in round holes and bring the error-free and utterly belligerent best of themselves to bear on the Boks.
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