{"id":306350,"date":"2025-11-24T21:22:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T21:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/306350\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T21:22:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T21:22:15","slug":"england-know-how-to-win-under-borthwick-now-to-handle-great-expectations-england-rugby-union-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/306350\/","title":{"rendered":"England know how to win under Borthwick \u2013 now to handle great expectations | England rugby union team"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Six Nations<\/a> grand slam, plus Nations Championship victories against South Africa and Fiji and England would head to Argentina next July having equalled their record run of 18 wins, in pursuit of a ground-breaking No\u00a019. Sounds simple put like that, but there\u2019s more chance of Steve\u00a0Borthwick busting his best moves in England\u2019s next viral TikTok video than him entertaining any thought of record runs.<\/p>\n

That is not to criticise, because even though Borthwick is allergic to looking too far ahead, doing so would be to get drastically carried away. The point here is that the more England keep winning, and they will enter the Six Nations next year as the team to beat after 11 on the trot, the more expectation increases.<\/p>\n

We got a glimpse of it just before half-time against Argentina. England were 17-3 ahead<\/a> having barely got out of second gear when George Ford opted to kick a penalty at goal. He missed and when presented with an easier shot a minute later he was instructed to kick to the corner. It was Luke Cowan-Dickie who implored him to do so \u2013 the hooker scoring a disallowed try from the subsequent lineout \u2013 but it was apparently a decision based on the need to inject some urgency into England\u2019s performance and to bring a sleepy Sunday crowd to life.<\/p>\n

In 2026, England will soon learn that 14-point leads against teams as dangerous as Argentina are not enough to engage their supporters if they are not playing with the intent they have shown they can.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the nervous finale<\/a> against the Pumas tempers expectation a touch, and makes clear that the gulf between England and the Springboks is still sizeable, although South Africa endured a similar finish against Argentina in October. But England have not won a Six Nations title since the Covid-interrupted 2020 edition<\/a>; it has been a while since they were even genuine contenders.<\/p>\n

Borthwick doesn\u2019t think in terms of expectations, or if he does he certainly doesn\u2019t show it. At the halfway point of the World Cup cycle England are precisely where he would want them to be, if not further ahead.<\/p>\n

The greatest strides have been in increasing depth \u2013 bringing Tom Curry off the bench with 20\u00a0minutes to go strikes fear into opponents whereas, with the greatest respect, introducing Alex Dombrandt did not. Borthwick has used 53 players in 2025 but he did not hand out any debuts in November \u2013 the first time England have not done so since 2000 \u2013 demonstrating how important he considered this campaign to be in the side\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

Keeping players such as Tom Curry (right) on the replacements\u2019 bench strikes fear into opponents. Photograph: Bob Bradford\/CameraSport\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The scrum has consistently improved this year and the importance of the summer tour of Argentina<\/a> cannot be underestimated in fast\u2011tracking the development of Joe Heyes, Fin Baxter and Asher Opoku-Fordjour. That in turn has allowed Borthwick to formulate his \u201cPom\u00a0Squad\u201d which has helped England to close out matches they were all too often losing last year.<\/p>\n

The decision to make Maro Itoje captain has paid off while the coaching chaos of 2024, when Aled Walters<\/a> and Felix\u00a0Jones<\/a> abandoned ship, has been consigned to history. Lee Blackett is a highly popular and talented attack coach and he has made his mark, as seen with the set play for Fraser Dingwall\u2019s try against the All Blacks<\/a>. Byron McGuigan is a motivator and dovetails well with Richard Wigglesworth, whose move to defence coach has been seamless. Perhaps most importantly, Borthwick finally got his man in Phil Morrow, an experienced strength and conditioning coach, who joined as head of team performance before the Argentina tour four months ago.<\/p>\n

There were no signs of post\u2011British & Irish Lions tour fatigue this autumn \u2013 the decision to ease most back into the fray off the bench proving a masterstroke \u2013 and if Morrow can continue in the same vein in the Six Nations he will earn his crust.<\/p>\n

There are challenges ahead. Dealing with the expectation is chief among them but so too is how England cope when they are not able to impose plan A on opponents for 80 minutes. They were rarely tested in that regard this autumn, but can expect to be during the Six Nations, with trips to Edinburgh and Paris coming after the opening visit of Wales.<\/p>\n

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If Borthwick appears to know the vast majority of his World Cup squad already \u2013 barring the odd bolter<\/a> \u2013 he has a job on his hands keeping everyone happy. He has repeatedly stressed the importance of the non-23 players this autumn, praising their attitude, but at the same time admitted the challenge of managing someone like Marcus Smith, whose role has been diminished over the last 12 months. Of his three fly-halves it is Fin Smith who finds himself out in the cold. To refer back to Borthwick\u2019s coaching staff, it is Kevin Sinfield who takes on the pastoral role for the squad and his input in the coming year will be crucial.<\/p>\n

In the coming days Borthwick plans to decompress before plotting England\u2019s Six Nations campaign, starting with a warm-up camp in Girona. To look beyond that is to get ahead of ourselves but the July trip to Johannesburg to face the Springboks at Ellis Park already looks mouthwatering.<\/p>\n

Borthwick does not like to put a label on England\u2019s current standing in the global landscape but he gave one in the aftermath of the win on Sunday that felt telling. \u201cThe top level of Test rugby now, it feels like anybody can … I\u00a0think South Africa are the No\u00a01 in the world, doing wonderfully well. Everybody else, it feels like everybody can … the Test matches are all super-tight. You look at those games [on Saturday] and whilst some scorelines end up blowing up, at 60 minutes they\u2019re still really, really tight. That\u2019s the nature of Test match rugby now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Springboks remain out in front but, while Borthwick would not admit it, England are leading the chasing pack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Six Nations grand slam, plus Nations Championship victories against South Africa and Fiji and England would head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-306350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}