Last night Jamie George spoke proudly of how easily and happily England could now lead the group.

Happy? How can a side that constantly loses against the big teams it faces be happy? How can it be easy to manage a team that fails at almost every objective and subjective KPI that comes their way?

In the background, England’s established coaching team of Steve Borthwick, Richard Wigglesworth, Kevin Sinfield and Tom Harrison have a huge coaching honor to their name: the 2022 Premiership Title; three of them achieve this at the same club, Leicester Tigers.

Steve Borthwick he constantly makes speeches outlining the ‘hugely talented group of players’ he has at his disposal and the positive atmosphere that exists within his squad, but as of now his real achievements are England Under Borthwick could be written on the edge of a postage stamp with a paint roller.

Evidence

Let’s examine the evidence.

The Bronze medal at the Rugby World Cup was, on the face of it, a truly impressive achievement. And yes, England came within one point of eventual champions South Africa in the semi-finals. But while the Springboks beat France and New Zealand to claim their gong, England’s only Tier 1 opponent outside the Boks in the entire World Cup was Argentina; It was a team that had improved greatly in the last 12 months but was overachieving in 2023. edible.

England made it two out of five in the 2023 Six Nations, suffering their biggest ever home defeat against France to finish fourth, and they managed another win against Ireland in 2024; this was easily Borthwick’s greatest achievement, but he still only finished third.

His record against current rugby’s big four of France, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa is one from seven; If you add yesterday’s defeat to Australia and the defeat against a Scotland team that England have beaten once in seven years, you can conclude that England have moved from rugby chasers to sporting bottom feeders.

His tenure is filled with heroic failures, a complete lack of evolution in player development, and an absolute devotion to what came before in terms of talent due to tensions around changing things for short-term pain in order to gain long-term momentum.

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Change the Guard

Let’s be honest, as much as we all love Dan Cole, he’s approaching 38 and if he’s unavailable tomorrow for some reason, Borthwick will have to throw in either Trevor Davison (2 times) or Joe Heyes (7 times) . Test Match against two of the best attacking teams in the world, the Springboks and the Springbok bench.

In the backline is Henry Slade, who missed the same number of tackles (8) in yesterday’s game that South Africa have missed in all knockout stages of the Rugby World Cup. But for some reason he was given a central contract, preventing any serious changes in England’s midfield for at least a year.

The policy on the bench seems to be to select a mix of players in the twilight period of their careers to reward loyalty and average mid-career players who have proven time and time again that they are not strong or talented enough to be Test players. Alex Dombrandt’s lack of athleticism and weak hands after Tom Curry’s dismissal on Saturday was embarrassing compared to watching Harry Wilson and Fraser McReight’s comfort with the ball in hand; As Nick Isiekwe slips in a tight headlock, you wonder how big of an attack it is. Aries sees in a man a man with the physical characteristics of a folding lounge chair.

The replacement strategy consistently leaves Britain worse off than it positively affects it. In seven Tier One Tests against the big four, and in the Australia match referred to, England lost the match in the final quarter despite being on top in the 60th minute. It smells like repeating the same mistakes over and over and expecting a different result; The very definition of insanity.

Horror Show

The statistics of the Australian test are appalling: 38 missed tackles, 19 tackles, 24 tackle errors.

Let these sink in for a moment before the context of the match is added. The duration of possession during the Test was 38 minutes, which roughly means England made a mistake every 30 seconds, a pretty remarkable display of incompetence.

England, who have taken two to zero in the Autumn Test series so far, will face their biggest challenge next weekend. It’s not out of the question that criticism of recent events in New Zealand and at home could prompt England to respond in a way that surprises everyone, but worryingly given the injury/observation list which also includes Tom Curry, Manny Feyi-Waboso, Ollie Lawrence and George Martin, if that were the case it would be the outcome of the season.

This leaves Borthwick in a real dilemma; stick or twist? Does he stay with players to whom he is admirably loyal in the hope that pure emotion will lead them home? Or is he throwing new combinations into the bullring to watch the most physical side in the world get ripped apart live?

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French Connection

There is a solution that may help; A change that involved a major shift in RFU policy, but one that would undeniably help turn England’s fortunes around. Lurking in the channel is an XV of players of French origin; these include David Ribbans, Lewis Ludlam, Kyle Sinckler (a man who has certainly turned his form this year), Will Collier, Joe Marchant and of course Toulouse’s volatile man Jack. Willis. Of course, there is a question about the suitability of training, but in this instance there is talk of money and England have already shown with the payments made in recruiting Borthwick that they will shake the hidden money tree when they need to.

England moved away from excesses and eccentricities Eddie Jones– the Donald Trump of rugby coaching. But even towards the end of his tenure, Eddie occasionally pulled a surprise out of his bag, and no one could say he didn’t see the need to redesign his team. At the moment the UK appears to have moved from their Trump era to the sleepy, excuse-filled backwaters of Joe Biden’s Steve Borthwick-led leadership, which is almost as worrying as Eddie’s Trump dictatorship.

Things need to change and it may be unorthodox to select players of French descent, but England are in a period of necessity rather than luxury and pride needs to be put aside to get the best players to represent the national team.

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