Lee Blackett’s verdict on the ‘negativity committee’ stalking England boss Steve Borthwick and the Wallaby ‘super strength’ that has him worried
England attack coach Lee Blackett and, inset, his boss Steve Borthwick
England assistant coach Lee Blackett has explained why he avoids the outside noise surrounding Steve Borthwick’s team. He has also highlighted the Wallaby super strength that has him worried ahead of the November 8 Nations Championship fixture in London.
The English will hope to win their third Test on the bounce when the welcome the Australians to Allianz Stadium, Twickenham after signing off on the southern leg of the Nations Championship with July wins over Fiji and Argentina.
Those victories, especially the one against the Pumas, allowed Borthwick to draw a line under calls for his head following a distressing Six Nations campaign and an underwhelming loss to South Africa.
Buoyed by the 31-24 win in Santiago del Estero, Borthwick shot back at the travelling media, telling them post-game: “You’re like the negativity committee, so it’s lovely coming and talking to you again.”
“I don’t want it to affect me as a coach…”
Rather than face the sack, the head coach has since had his contract extended through to the end of the 2027/28 season, but this decision only reignited criticisms of Borthwick’s inconsistent tenure in charge.
It was July 2025 when Blackett came on board as England’s attack coach, initially on a temporary basis before leaving his role at Bath a few months later to become a permanent Borthwick assistant.
England went on to extend their winning run at the time to 12 when defeating Wales in the opening round of the 2026 Six Nations, but they then collapsed, resulting in yet another public pile-on questioning Borthwick’s fitness for the job and the team’s ability.
It’s a noise that Blackett does everything he can to avoid for fear the negativity could affect the way he coaches the players. Appearing on The Good, The Bad & and The Rugby, he explained: “I want to stand up in front of the players and be really confident myself.
“If I think there’s negativity out there, I just close my ears and that’s it. I stay away from things. Most of the time with the press, unless I really need to know and people tell me, I don’t hear it because I don’t want it to affect me as a coach.
“Everyone gives their opinion on England. By the way, I did it before I got here, so that is what happens. But I don’t want it to affect me. I don’t want to be listening to it, I want to be able to see the game.
“I go off social media,” he added. “I just wouldn’t be on it. People that are close to me now know that I don’t really want to hear it where in the early days your dad had talked to you, your Mrs says this and you’re like, I don’t want to hear it.”
Despite this wish to come across as confident as possible with the players, Blackett explained why he is worried about the threat posed next week by the Wallabies even though he believes Borthwick’s team are now better than the side that defeated the Australians a year ago.
The English ran out 25-7 winners at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham in November 2025 and they are now preparing to host the Wallabies again on November 8, only this time the visitors have Les Kiss at the helm after he succeeded Joe Schmidt last July.
Australia will arrive having had an encouraging run of initial results under Kiss ended by a 0-2 Bledisloe Cup series loss. They were beaten 50-19 in Auckland and then 43-21 in Sydney earlier in October, but Blackett wasn’t entirely dismissive of their display.
“They are a dangerous side. Even in those two matches recently, probably the first Test more I thought they had New Zealand under all kinds of pressure that first half,” he said, referencing how they reached the Eden Park interval trailing by only 17-14. “They had them on the back foot, so you’re just worried that they put that 80-minute performance in.
“Look, definitely fearful. They’ve got great athletes. They’ve got, when we talk about breakdown in Europe, we’ve also got to talk about their breakdown. That’s a super strength of theirs.
“It has been for years, but it really is a super strength, so there’s plenty of things to deal with it, and yeah, you just don’t want to allow them to put that 80-minute performance. But again, we take our focus, we put the focus back on ourselves. Like, they’ve got to deal with us as well.”
Looking back to last November’s clash, Blackett added: “I look at that game last year, we’re better now. I know things that we can all say about the Six Nations; Six Nations wasn’t what we would say is our standard.
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“I thought we finished the campaign well. I don’t think we started great against South Africa, but we put Fiji away and we properly put them away. Then we went to Argentina and I thought we were really good. I thought we played some great rugby, so there’s little bits where I’m seeing improvement.
“There’s still a long way to go for this group. This group’s got a lot of talented individuals in it, and we can see more of them. I’d like to think of staying really consistent with what we’re saying, we should get better game by game,” he said, looking at the upcoming four game. November schedule.
“That first game is always the hardest. You’re bringing everyone together, having to make them gel really fast and you’ve got limited time with them on the field. We’ve got three main sessions between now and the game, so that’s the big thing.
“Look, where are we? I feel like we’re getting better, but there’s a long way to go still.”
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