{"id":297206,"date":"2026-02-22T22:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T22:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/297206\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T22:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T22:39:10","slug":"england-rugbys-six-nations-collapse-how-title-hopes-fell-apart-after-ireland-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/297206\/","title":{"rendered":"England rugby\u2019s Six Nations collapse: How title hopes fell apart after Ireland loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

A team with England\u2019s rugby resources, both playing and financial, ought to be ambitious and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with aiming high.<\/p>\n

But the issue was more that for a coach who had made such a mantra out of a \u201cone game at a time\u201d approach, such a bullish public statement jarred.<\/p>\n

To borrow an old Irish expression, it was maybe just a sign that Borthwick had, ever so slightly, \u201clost the run of himself\u201d and with it the team as well.<\/p>\n

In that respect, hammering one of the weakest Wales teams in living memory, which gave his side a 12th successive win against all opponents, may have worked against Borthwick\u2019s men, with Red Rose prop Ellis Genge telling the BBC after Saturday\u2019s loss to Ireland: \u201cWe probably believed the hype from the first week too much. We can\u2019t let the noise in now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Awful\u2019 defence<\/p>\n

For two games in a row, England\u2019s defence has been ruthlessly exposed, with both Scotland and Ireland scoring a flurry of early tries.<\/p>\n

The Scots led 17-0 after just 16 minutes at Murrayfield and the Irish were 22-0 up on the half-hour mark as they powered away to a win that would surpass their previous largest Twickenham triumph \u2013 a 32-15 success in 2022.<\/p>\n

Both games were eminently losable \u2013 Ireland have now won six of their last seven tests against England and Scotland five of the past six \u2013 but a particular concern for Borthwick\u2019s men during the past two matches has been an inability to cope with disruption, be it yellow cards or injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spacing is all wrong,\u201d wrote former England centre Will Greenwood in his Daily Telegraph column, with the 2003 World Cup-winner adding: \u201cThe defence was abject, awful. Quick ball kills England because they are too slow to react.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lack of composure<\/p>\n

Following this thumping loss, it was easy to forget that England did manage sustained spells of possession early on at Twickenham but they lacked the wit to unlock a committed Ireland defence that refused to buckle in the face of repeated forward drives.<\/p>\n

And as Ireland continued to make their tackles<\/a>, England undid much of their good work with self-inflicted wounds such as when an 18-phase move ended with Genge dropping a pass from George Ford.<\/p>\n

It was a tough day for veteran fly-half Ford as he failed to find touch with one early penalty and sent another dead before drawing ironic cheers from the Twickenham faithful when he finally located the sideline.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge has done so much good for England for such a long period of time,\u201d Borthwick told a post-match press conference. But he must now decide if Ford keeps the No 10 shirt when England resume their Six Nations campaign against Italy in Rome on March 7.<\/p>\n

\u2013AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A team with England\u2019s rugby resources, both playing and financial, ought to be ambitious and there is nothing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[27341,142559,74,103394,31100,18239,17400,13114,163779,1634,34464,2024,13989,1888,1221,21695,2883,3012,221,8019,1743,2225,17154,111,139,69,74282,6327,53902,7811,4739,213,165,8229,2044,2563,163780,1491,102],"class_list":["post-297206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-27341","tag-142559","tag-after","tag-apart","tag-champions","tag-championship","tag-collapse","tag-crowned","tag-dethroning","tag-england","tag-entered","tag-europe","tag-fell","tag-first","tag-france","tag-genuine","tag-hope","tag-hopes","tag-how","tag-ireland","tag-launched","tag-loss","tag-nations","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rout","tag-rugby","tag-rugbys","tag-since","tag-six","tag-sports","tag-their","tag-they","tag-time","tag-title","tag-titleholders","tag-wales","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}