England legend suggests that RFU are now in Ardie Savea territory with Steve Borthwick but former teammate insists ‘he can turn this around’
England legend Ben Youngs has wondered if an Ardie Savea-like New Zealand situation will materialise for Steve Borthwick, main picture
Former England scrum-half Ben Youngs has claimed this week will be very interesting to see if there is any type of Ardie Savea-like “voices” against Steve Borthwick and his coaching.
It was feedback from the All Blacks No.8 to NZ Rugby on the 2025 season under Scott Robertson that reportedly accelerated the decision to cut the New Zealand head coach loose and replace him last week with Dave Rennie.
Stories had emerged that Savea would rather take a Test rugby sabbatical than play on under Robertson, and the criticism was a factor in the decision to axe the coach even though he was contracted through to Rugby World Cup 2027.
Borthwick is similarly contracted by England through to the conclusion of next year’s tournament in Australia, but Youngs is intrigued with the potential for leaks to now emerge from frustrated English players and potentially force the RFU into taking action.
Debacle of Rome
England are heading to Paris with the momentum of a 12-match winning streak now consigned to the scrapheap. They are instead hurting from three humiliating defeats – yet another Calcutta Cup loss to Scotland, Ireland putting 42 on them at home and then last Saturday’s embarrassment of losing to Italy for the first time.
Sifting through the debacle of Rome, Youngs, the record England men’s caps holder, said on the For The Love Of Rugby show he co-hosts with Dan Cole: “This is why this weekend is really interesting because we saw what Ardie Savea said and his voices around Razor [Robertson] and that publicly came out.
“You look at what you mentioned about your buy-in to it and we’ll see against France; I think players always show the cards really and it’ll be interesting to see whether England set up to almost do damage limitation.
“I’ll give you an example: we played France in 2022, the last game of the Six Nations and they’re on for the Grand Slam. We went to that game and it felt like we were set up to not win, just to hang in there. Basically, the game plan we were set up that week was to just hang in there and it was almost damage limitation.”
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England lost that match by only 25-13, but it didn’t help Eddie Jones in the long run as he was removed from his job later that year and replaced by Borthwick. Youngs now wondered if this Saturday’s game plan for Paris under Borthwick would be similar, damage limitation rather than something that can excite the players and produce a result.
Whereas co-host Cole insisted Borthwick regardless remained the best option as head coach for England, Youngs reckoned a very tricky situation had now materialised. “All the conversation is going to be around is this the right person to see it through, because it feels like a bit of a stick or twist moment when you think about Eddie in the autumn that was less than a year away from the World Cup.
“You look at what New Zealand have just done. You look at the fact Australia are obviously changing with Joe Schmidt at the end of the summer. You know, Les Kiss is coming in and that’s for a home nation hosting the World Cup.
“It does feel like someone has to make the call, whether they genuinely believe that England can get there or they don’t, and those conversations will be happening. Like they almost have to be. It’s inevitable. We’d be fools if we think those conversations are not going to happen.”
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Cole was having none of this ‘sack’ speculation, though. “Those conversations are happening in the wider world. Whether they happen in the RFU, I don’t know. Not privy to it. For me, I have said how much of a pro Steve Borthwick person I am and okay, put my emotional side, call me whatever you want, I think he can turn this around and take England forward.
“On the other side of it, right, if I’m thinking it in my pragmatic head side of things, like England can’t just make a knee-jerk reaction unless there is a plan in place elsewhere. That’s all I say.
“Like I don’t want to speculate about people’s jobs and the rest of it, but like we’ve seen it across sport, happens in the NFL, happens in football. You make your emotional reaction based on a few games and actually, things get worse because you need a plan in place.
“And so that would be my head part talking, but my heart side of things thinks yeah, this team, the coaching staff can turn around. There is obviously honest conversations, and what I know about the staff is they will be having those conversations.
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“Trust me, no one will delve deeper into it than the coaching staff, Steve and his coaches, led by him and everyone around it. We’ve seen it in England ourselves, seen it at Leicester. He will be hurting no matter what, but he will also not be glossing over things within himself and his staff to find solutions, and whether Steve finds those solutions, we will find out.
“Whether he gets a chance to, we’ll find out. But he will not not be looking for them, you know what I mean? There’ll be no stone unturned trying to find out the problems, and no person will work harder that I know of trying to correct that. Now that’s my pro Steve talk done.”
