'It's not far off a crisis Courtney' - Ugo Monye rebutts Lawes on-air

Former England international Ugo Monye openly challenged Courtney Lawes on TNT Sports after England’s 29-20 defeat to South Africa at Twickenham, a result that marked their fifth consecutive Test loss.

Lawes, who retired from international rugby last year and remains close to the England setup, appeared reluctant to criticize the team’s performance, leading Monye to push back with a stark assessment.

Lawes was asked by TNT anchor Craig Doyle after the defeat to the Boks: "Is this a crisis?"

"It's too early in the year to be a crisis," replied Lawes. "We've got time. It's always a build-up to the World Cup. And yes, there's thing you want to win in between that. But this is the start of a new campaign and we've got to give them a chance."

Monye - a more established rugby pundit - clearly didn't agree.

“It’s not far off a crisis Courtney. We’re going to end up this Autumn Nations one [win] out of four. That’s awful. When we look at the end of this year, we’d have won four out of 10 matches. For a team that wants to win a World Cup, that was in a World Cup semi-final, that was in a World Cup final the one before – this is so sub-standard from where we expect our team to be.

“It isn’t just the last 20 minutes; that opening 20 minutes, how sloppy were some of those tries? Three weekends we’ve found three ways to lose matches this autumn and that’s probably the most frustrating thing.

"Fundamentally the one common denominator which has been woeful across the last three weeks is our defence is not good enough. It’s not good enough to mix it with the best teams on the planet, with New Zealand, Australia and now the back-to-back world champions. If you concede four tries against South Africa you’re going to struggle. And this was a South Africa side with a yellow card, that couldn’t get out of their half, that were gifted opportunities. We had enough ball and enough territory but we didn’t have enough to get the job done.”

🗣️ "Is this a crisis?"

🫣 @Courtney_Lawes and @UgoMonye argue about the current @EnglandRugby form 😬#AutumnNationsSeries | #ENGvRSA pic.twitter.com/kZsORyKMao

— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) November 16, 2024

Lawes - who currently plays for Brive in the Pro D2 - conceded that it had been a tough watch.

“Ultimately we’re not cohesive enough as a team,” Lawes said. “We’re not cohesive in defence, we’re not cohesive in attack so we end up on the wrong side of the scoreboard too often.

“This is going to be hard for the boys and it’s really tough to watch to be honest. All they can do is get back up, get back to training next week and try and take a step forward. That’s all you can do at this point. What’s done is done. They have to develop as a team, they’ve got time to do it. It’s disappointing but you’ve got to get back up and go again.”

When Lawes suggested time was still on England's side, Monye once again pounced: "How much time? It’s been two years. We’re not getting enough out of our players. If you look through the team sheet I’m looking at a huge amount of talented players, and for some reason we aren’t getting the maximum potential out of our players. We’re just not. We’re seeing players who are tearing it up for their clubs come into camp with great form and of course international rugby is very different to domestic rugby but for whatever reason we’re not able to reach the potential ceiling that we would expect from this team."

A dejected Maro Itoje - PA

Monye said he wants England's issues addressed before the Six Nations, stating that one win from four is "unacceptable" for English rugby. He suggested the only solution is for players to return to their clubs and improve their performances.

“Steve Borthwick has now got a far greater sense of autonomy over the players whether it be conditioning or rest periods and all the rest of it. We will get to the Six Nations of the back of a dismal 2024 and they should be judged at the end of this and they will be judged again because we constantly say we want to be dining at the top table because we should be, because of our finances, because of our player pool, because of the quality, because of the strength of our domestic competition. But four [wins] out of 10 at the end of this year is not what I expect from this team.”