Head coach Steve Borthwick has been given no guarantees over his job as the RFU continues their review of England’s performance at the 2026 Six Nations.
Heading into the Championship, England were dubbed as favourites for the title alongside France, but woefully underperformed, winning just one of their five matches, which included a first-ever defeat to Italy and ultimately a fifth-place finish.
Steve Borthwick’s performance review
The results in the Six Nations have prompted murmurs over Borthwick’s future and while Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney says that they are eager to get the right support in place for Borthwick through the review, by an anonymous panel, he did not assure his position.
“There is a lot of noise out there,” Sweeney told reporters in a media briefing, the first time the bigwig has spoken since the Six Nations.
“You’ve got to take emotion out of the equation. You just look at it purely in terms of: What was the performance? What were the issues? Why did they arise? And how do we fix them?
“I see the outcome being for us to make sure we have got the right support mechanisms in place to address them and support Steve to get that right going forward.”
On Borthwick’s future, Sweeney felt it was not the right time to comment amid the review process, which is conducted after every major international window.
“We’re in the middle of the review, so it wouldn’t be appropriate to start talking about that (Borthwick’s future) right now, but we’ll get to the bottom of all of them,” he added.
The England head coach is contracted through to the end of the 2027 Rugby World Cup, which is the case for many head honchos, namely Andy Farrell, who has already been linked with a return to his old stomping ground, Saracens.
Andy Farrell speculation
The PREM Rugby club issued a statement denying any employment contact with the Ireland head coach and Sweeney has done the same in terms of England. However, he did add a caveat…
“He’s under contract to 2027 and the Rugby World Cup,” said Sweeney. “We are not in dialogue. We are not in a discussion with him at present.”
England were on a 12-game winning streak prior to the Championship, which included wins over Australia, France and New Zealand before it all unravelled at the tournament.
Sweeney says that achieving consistency in performance is more of a concern for the union at the moment and not a win ratio.
“We are really focused on seeing progress again and seeing better and more consistent performances,” Sweeney continued. “That is the focus – it’s not a set number of wins or a percentage.
“It’s about getting back to the way we were playing. Steve talks about playing big. That has been the intention and you saw that against France.
“We still think this is an extremely strong squad that has got the potential and capability to do some really good things.”
He added: “The Ireland game was probably the most concerning, just because of the style and the nature of the loss.”
He further explained that the thorough review has been delayed slightly due to some people who the panel want to speak to being away and on leave. The outcome of the review is expected over the next week or so.