England great: Steve Borthwick needs to be ‘convincing’ in RFU review after ‘not good enough’ Six Nations

Ben Kay says Rugby Football Union chiefs must emerge from their Six Nations review with a clear plan of how to improve the England team – and not just sack the manager, football-style.

The World Cup winner is rumoured to have been invited to take part in the post-mortem of England’s least successful championship campaign for 50 years, one in which they conceded more tries and more points than ever before.

He won’t comment on that but is clear in his mind that the process must be thorough, meaningful and not, as Sir Clive Woodward said of a previous debrief, a “cringe-worthy exercise in box-ticking and corporate twaddle”.

Kay will be reminded more of England past than England present this weekend when he gets on his bike and rides from Leicester to Birmingham alongside his 2003 World Cup skipper Martin Johnson.

The Slater Cup

The Race to The Slater Cup involves teams of ex-players from Tigers and Gloucester pedalling from their respective clubs to Villa Park, venue for Saturday’s PREM clash between the two clubs, to raise funds for charities aligned to motor neurone disease.

“Johnno is more competitive as a cyclist than he was as a rugby player,” Kay says. “I went out for a bit of a training ride with him last Sunday. The tactics are there and the old eyebrow comes out if you don’t pedal quick enough.

“He’s standard Johnno but, alarmingly, all in Lycra. He’s a proper [cycling] geek. He spends his days tinkering with his gear shifters, taking his bike apart and putting it back together! That’s his thing.”

The 45-mile ‘race’ reunites old pals in support of Lewis Moody and Ed Slater. “The reasons behind it are obviously very emotional,” Kay explains. “Hopefully we’ll do some good.”

The same sentiment could be applied to England’s post-tournament review. In 18 months the World Cup returns to Australia, scene of Kay and Johnson’s finest hour.

Steve Borthwick‘s team were one of the favourites for 2027 before losing four games in a Six Nations for the first time. They have dropped three places to sixth in the world rankings and there have been calls for Borthwick’s head.

“You can’t just go, a bit like football, ‘right, the team’s performed badly so let’s sack him’,” says Kay. “Then go, ‘what do we do now?’

“Do that and you end up in the same situation as Nottingham Forest or Tottenham, don’t you? Just cycling through, trying to find the answer.

“You’ve got to have a plan. The RFU needs to say, how do we make this better? Bearing in mind it’s 18 months before the World Cup, does Steve have the answers or not to the questions that make you believe he can turn it round?

PREM Rugby round 12: Predictions, teams, kick-off times, how to watch and referee appointments

“They’ve got to ask him this question. The three weeks in the middle [of the championship, when England lost to Scotland, Ireland and Italy] weren’t good enough, what are you going to do to solve it?

“They then have to decide whether his response is believable enough. Also, look elsewhere and go, ‘right, what other options would be around?’ Be that someone to come in with Steve, be that Steve stepping down and someone else to come in.

“It’s about getting as much information as possible to have the best chance of making the right call.

“You then go, ‘In the 18 months we’ve got, does that give us a better chance of winning a World Cup?’ If the answer is yes, then that’s what you go after.”

The last time England finished fifth in the championship, albeit it with twice as many wins, was 2021 – after which Woodward said what he said and branded the review a “whitewash”.

Kay, these days a respected broadcaster, is clear that this debrief will not leave itself open to similar criticism.

“All the questions that people are asking publicly will be asked and will be put to them,” he insists.

“It’s certainly not just going to be ‘sweep everything under the carpet, say we had a review, but actually just go in there and tell Steve not to do it again’.

“The panel needs to be convinced he has the ability – not just him, the whole coaching staff – to make sure this never happens again.”

Jamie George is adamant Borthwick retains the backing of the dressing room but the head coach’s critics say the balance of his coaching team is wrong: skewed too far in favour of defence over attack. For long stretches of the tournament England’s strategy seemed to amount to kick and flap.

“The game plan, contrary to popular belief, is not just box kick, get the ball back and then play,” says Kay. “That is not the game plan.

“The game plan is what they put on the field against New Zealand in those two Tests in 2024 [England lost both but led in each and matched the All Blacks try for try playing without fear]. That’s how he wants them to play.

Six Nations slump

“Now, for some reason, in those middle games of this championship, they weren’t able to put that onto the field. They weren’t able to get out of first gear, if you like. The question is, why?

“Are the coaches not empowering the players to go out and play like that? Are they not setting them up right to play the way they want to play?

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“Or is it just a case that some psychology needs to happen within the squad that makes them bold enough to go out and play how they want to play rather than default back to a safer, easier to play against but less likely to make mistakes, game plan?

“For me, it’s all about belief. England look like a team that needed [there] to be nothing on the line, if you know what I mean.

“The French game, they went out looking like a team that just said, ‘right, we’re going to give it a go’, whereas in the other games they looked like a team going out not to lose. If you go out not to lose you become very easy to play against.

“There is time to turn the belief around. The RFU have to decide what’s the best shot at doing that.”

Tickets for Saturday’s Slater Cup match at Villa Park between Gloucester and Leicester Tigers can still be purchased here. £1 of every ticket sale will go to Slater’s charity ‘4ED’ to support families affected by MND.

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