England head coach Steve Borthwick insists he has the full support of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) despite speculation swirling around his future following another defeat.

The pressure seems to be building every week this fall; England are on a poor run of five straight defeats and sit seventh in the world rankings at the time of writing.

Borthwick has ‘absolute support’ for RFU

Speaking to the media after Saturday’s defeat to South Africa Borthwick Despite the difficult situation, he said he was “confident” his team was moving in the right direction.

“I’m very confident we’re on the right track,” he said. “I’m working with a great group of coaches and players, I’m pretty confident we’re on a path to progress.”

He added: “We want some things to happen now, they’re not happening at the moment but we’re aiming for a better performance against Japan next week.”

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Asked if he had the support of senior RFU brass, he insisted he still felt everyone was behind him and his team.

“I won’t talk about private conversations but more importantly the feeling I get and the feeling I get from the RFU is absolute support and absolute belief that this team is heading in the right direction. That’s the feeling I get from everyone in the RFU,” he said.

“We will do everything we can”

England They are now heading for a make-or-break clash with Japan and captain Jamie George echoed Borthwick’s comments that they will be a “much better team” next Sunday.

“I couldn’t agree (with Steve) more,” he said. “As Steve said, we are disappointed with the results. We wanted to give the England fans three wins out of three, of course we did that and if you look at the three Test matches separately there are certainly things we need to get better at.

“I have every confidence and belief in the players and staff that we will do everything we can to become a much better team, both next weekend and as we look ahead to the Six Nations.”

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England’s problem in recent fixtures has been to close out matches. They were ahead in all five of the last defeats but failed to score a single point in the final quarter against South Africa.

Commenting on this, George said his team needed to “find solutions” for this, but was also quick to highlight the positives the defeat could bring to the world champions.

“I was really proud of the team in terms of how we performed physically,” he said. “Test match rugby is a game of really good margins and we created a lot of opportunities against a top-class team.”

“You talk to them (the Springboks) after the game and they were saying they felt really under pressure and felt the physicality of the game; “I think that’s a sign of a good team, but we just need to find the fixes to close out these games.”

The match to be played next weekend is also of serious importance; Former boss Eddie Jones will take charge of the first match against England since his sacking in 2022.

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