Opinion: England sacked their coaching Donald Trump but have replaced him with Sleepy Joe Biden
A split image of ex-England head coach Eddie Jones and current boss Steve Borthwick.
Last night, Jamie George proudly talked about what an easy and happy group England are to lead right now.
Happy? How on earth can a side that is consistently losing against any big team they face be happy? How can a team be easy to lead when they’re failing on virtually 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, between them, one major coaching honour – the 2022 Premiership Title, three of them delivering that at the same club, Leicester Tigers.
Steve Borthwick is continually delivering speeches outlining the ‘tremendously talented group of players’ that he has at his disposal and the atmosphere of positivity that exists within his squad, but as of now, the real achievements of England under Borthwick could be written on the edge of a postage stamp with a paint roller.
Evidence
Let’s examine the evidence.
A Bronze medal at the Rugby World Cup was a really impressive achievement on the surface. And yes, England got to within a point of the eventual champions, South Africa in the semifinal. But, whilst the Springboks beat France and New Zealand to get their gongs, England’s only Tier 1 opponent in the entire World Cup, aside from the Boks, was Argentina, a side that have improved greatly in the last 12 months but in 2023 were eminently beatable.
England managed two from five in the 2023 Six Nations finishing fourth, sliding to their biggest ever home defeat against France, and in 2024, they managed to win one more, against Ireland, easily Borthwick’s biggest achievement, but still finished only third.
Against the big four of current rugby, France, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa, his record is one from seven; add in the loss to Australia yesterday and defeats against Scotland, a team that England have beaten once in seven years, and you can only conclude that England have moved from rugby predators to sporting bottom feeders.
His tenure is littered with heroic failure, a complete lack of evolution of player development and an absolute adherence to what’s gone before in terms of talent due to nervousness about changing things for short-term pain in order to gather long-term momentum.
Change the Guard
Let’s be honest, as much as we all love Dan Cole, he is approaching 38 and if for any reason he became unavailable tomorrow, Borthwick would be forced to chuck either Trevor Davison (2 caps) or Joe Heyes (7 caps) into a Test match against the two best scrummaging packs in the world, the Springboks and the Springbok bench.
In the backline, Henry Slade, a man who missed more tackles (8) in a match yesterday that South Africa missed in the entire knockout stages of the Rugby World Cup. Yet for some reason he’s been awarded with a central contract, preventing any real substantive change in the England midfield for at least a year.
On the subs bench, the policy appears to be that of picking a blend of players at the twilight of their career to reward loyalty, combined with selecting average mid-career players who have proven time and time again they’re not tough or skilled enough to be Test players. Alex Dombrandt’s lack of athleticism and poor hands after Tom Curry went off on Saturday were embarrassing compared to watching the comfort of Harry Wilson and Fraser McReight with the ball in hand, whilst Nick Isiekwe sliding on as a tight headlock leaves you wondering quite what a scrum coach sees in a man that has the physical properties of a folding deck chair.
The replacement strategy consistently leaves England worse off than it does impacted positively. In the seven Tier One Tests against the big four and the Australia match referenced, England have been on top at 60 minutes yet have lost the match in the last quarter. It smacks of repeating the same errors time and time again but expecting a different outcome- the very definition of insanity.
Horror Show
The stats from the Australia test are horrendous- 38 missed tackles, 19 times turned over, 24 handling errors.
Let those sink in for a moment before the context of the match is added. The ball in play time was 38 minutes during the Test, which means, roughly, England erred once every 30 seconds, a quite remarkable display of incompetence.
With zero from two in the Autumn Test series so far, England have their biggest challenge next weekend. It isn’t beyond possibility that the criticism of recent events in New Zealand and at home could sting England into a hell of a reply that will surprise everyone, but given the injury/observation list, which worryingly includes Tom Curry, Manny Feyi-Waboso, Ollie Lawrence and George Martin, it would be the result of the season if that happened.
That leaves Borthwick in a real conundrum – stick or twist? Does he stay with the players he’s been admirably loyal to, in the hope that pure emotion will take them home? Or does he throw new combinations into the bull ring against the most physical side in the world to watch them being mauled alive?
French Connection
There is a solution that might assist; one that involves a huge change in RFU policy, but one that undeniably would aid a projected turnaround of England’s fortunes. Lurking over the channel is an XV of French-based players- including David Ribbans, Lewis Ludlam, Kyle Sinckler (a man that’s absolutely turned his form around this year) Will Collier, Joe Marchant and of course, the mercurial man of Toulouse, Jack Willis. Sure, there’s a question over training availability, but money talks in this instance and England have already shown, with the payouts made when appointing Borthwick, that they’ll shake the secret money tree when they need to.
England have moved on from the excesses and eccentricities of Eddie Jones– the Donald Trump of rugby coaching. However, Eddie occasionally, even towards the end of his tenure, pulled a surprise out of the bag and nobody could ever suggest he didn’t see the need to re-design his team. Right now, England look as if they’ve moved on from their very own Trump era to the sleepy excuse-ridden backwaters of Joe Biden leadership under Steve Borthwick and that is almost just as worrying as Eddie’s Trumpian dictatorship.
Things need to change- and picking the French-based players might go against the grain but England are in a time of necessity over luxury and pride must be swallowed to get the best players representing the national team.
