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It was a subtle shift in tone that showed that Steve Borthwick knows that the goodwill is gone for his England rugby side. Across three tight defeats to All Blacks, the England head coach had pleaded for patience from supporters, chewing on the gristle of fine margins and 50/50 calls and insisting that his team would take those ever nebulous “learnings”.
But on Saturday night, after the most damaging defeat yet to an Australian side which had begun November tenth in the world rankings and won just once in the Rugby Championship, Borthwick’s language changed. “I don’t want to be stood here on the back of a loss saying we’ll learn, because we want to win games and are desperate to win games,” he said, the encouraged coach of a week ago replaced by a frustrated figure.
“We keep putting ourselves in positions to win games. While we have been competing with some of the best teams in the world, and the margins are incredibly tight, we want wins. Everyone wants wins.”
There were distinct differences to this latest failure, England’s plan foundering on qualities beyond those that had recurred across those New Zealand defeats. For once, Borthwick’s men found a way to take back control of a fixture in the final quarter, twice going ahead in the final 15 minutes. And yet, again, come the last peep of Ben O’Keeffe’s whistle, England were underneath their posts: beaten, battered and bewildered.
After 35 missed tackles and 17 turnovers, Borthwick appeared to shift some of the blame squarely on his squad. There was one way in which England could have contrived to lose to an Australian side lacking in the control and cohesion to shape a structured performance, and yet they naively let themselves get sucked in to just the sort of helter-skelter ride that the Wallabies were likely to like. Having begun so strongly, and looked on course for a comfortable victory when Chandler Cunningham-South crossed for the second of his two tries, England took their foot off the throat.
“I think the first 20 was exactly how we wanted to play,” Borthwick, who retains the backing of the Rugby Football Union (RFU), said. “Then there was a period there where you saw the game go end-to-end-to-end, which was clearly not the way we wanted to play, giving the opposition so many opportunities. You can’t gift a team with that many fast, athletic outside backs that many chances.
“There were periods there when the players played really smart rugby and there were periods when they didn’t. We’ve got a framework which we want to play within and once you move out of that framework, that’s when turnovers happen and mistakes happen. We have to make sure we stay aligned with how we want to play.
“Some of the contextual decisions from that period – how can you not give them the opportunities we did going into half time? And then certainly the end of the game, where we are up on the scoreboard and give them that turnover in the middle of the pitch. What is the decision-making process? That’s a question that I will be asking the players.”
The coach has regularly pointed to his side’s inexperience when scrutinising the tough moments this year but game-by-game those words ring more and more hollow. Australia, remember, were starting a centre who had not previously played a game of senior rugby union; their match-winning try-scorer is barely 20. Come the clutch, they had the calmness to close it out.
And so an England side seemingly in a perpetual state of transition faces another identity crisis. While there were missed opportunities on the tour of New Zealand, it was clear to see the gameplan, with a desire to play with pace and tenacity in transition complementing the aggressive blitz defence that the side were starting to hone.
Now, it is unclear on what the team is intending to hang their hat. The upheaval caused by Felix Jones’s resignation was significant, with Joe El-Abd rushed in on a job-sharing basis and his defensive tweaks taking time to be implemented. It appeared in the second half as if England had gone away from the high linespeed approach, sitting off at times with Australia’s carrying punch and offloading game causing havoc, but Maro Itoje suggested afterwards that this was as much to do with muddled minds than a change in strategy.
“We haven’t done that on purpose. I definitely think we need to be more aggressive. I think we need to be more joined up. Probably today, because of the number of turnovers, we probably weren’t able to get set to go hard and go as hard as we would like. The growth and the improvement will definitely be to go harder off the line.”
It leaves Borthwick in a mighty quandary with the world champion Springboks up next. The side that started at Twickenham on Saturday was, barring the injured Ollie Chessum, his best team. He has placed total faith in that group and a more adventurous, high-risk gameplan since a transformative week in York that preceded the Ireland win during the Six Nations.
The upcoming clash with South Africa will be a test of his commitment. Does a relatively conservative coach by character now look to move back towards the style that brought joy during the World Cup campaign? Head injuries for Tom Curry and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso will force at least two alterations; there may be an argument to freshen things up elsewhere, too.
“I think we’ve shown we can win in different ways,” Ben Earl stressed on Saturday evening despite the string of defeats. “That might not have been the case during that World Cup. We know that we’re a different side in terms of personnel, experience, style, but we know that the England DNA is still very strong in our team; the same but also different.
“Steve will ask us some pretty harsh questions this week and we’ve got to stand up to the challenge. I’ve not seen him angry too many times. When I’ve seen it, it’s pretty daunting and it makes things change pretty quickly.”
