England scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet is hopeful the new ‘blueprint’ discovered in their defeat to France is the answer to their issues, but admits his side have ‘a lot to fix’ after their woeful Six Nations campaign.
Borthwick’s side slumped to their worst-ever Six Nations campaign with just one win from five Tests this Championship, a run of form that also saw them ship a record 151 points along the way, while only bonus points kept them from avoiding the Wooden Spoon.
This is a far cry from the side England were in 2025, with them coming into the Championship off the back of 11 successive wins, with victories over France, New Zealand, Argentina and Australia included in that run.
‘The way we attacked is our blueprint now’
Even with England ending the campaign on a positive points difference and scoring the second-most points of any team this Championship, their attacking game plan was questioned across their Six Nations campaign, with the kick-first strategy unable to bear the fruits it did in 2025 or indeed against Wales in round one.
But Saturday saw a remarkable change in their approach. Opting for more ball-in-hand, England scored seven tries in the thrilling finale to the Championship in Paris, securing just their second try bonus point of the campaign in the process.
It was not enough to get them over the line, though, as Thomas Ramos slotted an 80th-minute penalty to secure the victory – and the title – for Les Bleus, but the England scrum-half hopes it’s just the start of their new gameplan.
“The way we attacked is our blueprint now,” he told the media in the aftermath of the 48-46 epic at the Stade de France. “That’s what we have to take forward.
“The boost it gives when you’re really going at a team like that, challenging them with speed of ball, it puts a great feeling into the team, and it’s something we’ll look to build on.
“We’ve attacked well in parts in the tournament, but probably because we haven’t finished our chances, it’s taken it away from us a bit.
‘The adversity will help us for the rest of the year’
Frustratingly for both England players and supporters, the shift in performance came too late in the day to salvage their Six Nations campaign. After securing a resounding opening day victory over Wales, Borthwick’s side would go onto lose four consecutive Tests and succumb to their worst-ever Six Nations finish.
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Around that, the manner of the defeats has also put the future of the head coach into the spotlight.
“We know we have a lot to fix,” the scrum-half added. “We’ll get to the bottom of it, but we can take a lot forward from that performance against France.
“Particularly against Scotland and Ireland, our performances weren’t there. We know that if you don’t perform in this tournament, you get punished.
“The frustration is that we have performances in us, as we showed against France. For whatever reason, we couldn’t deliver that (across the Six Nations).
“We’ll take huge lessons from it. The adversity will help us for the rest of the year, and next year too.”
For now, the head coach has retained the public backing of the RFU boss Bill Sweeney, but further defeats in the Nations Championship could turn the situation into a full-blown crisis.
And, England don’t have it any easier heading into the rest of the year, with Tests against South Africa, Fiji and Argentina scheduled in July before taking on Australia, Japan and New Zealand in November.