Borthwick responds to Gatland jibe at England fitness
Steve Borthwick insists he is satisfied with England’s conditioning despite Warren Gatland’s claim that his Wales side were fitter in Cardiff last Saturday.
Wales emerged comfortable 20-9 winners from the first of two meetings between the rivals that are being staged as preparation for the World Cup with the second taking place at Twickenham this weekend.
Gatland stirred the pot at the Principality Stadium by saying Wales were “too fit for them” and that he felt “some of the English forwards were blowing a bit just before half-time”.
England boss Borthwick rejected the criticism by stating his team are on track to be ready for the World Cup under the guidance of Aled Walters, who acted as South Africa’s head of conditioning for their triumph in 2019.
“The programme is very specific and direct for what we need to do with the players we have,” Borthwick said.
“In Aled Walters, with his experience of getting a team right to win a World Cup, we’ve got a guy who’s proven to get a team together at the right time.
“We believe we’re on the right track for where we want to be right now, I don’t know what other teams are doing or saying about their players or our team, I just concentrate on my team and we’re in a pretty good place right now.
“We are ensuring our training is tailored for where we need to be in four weeks’ time. I know this team is going to get sharper over the subsequent weeks.
“As the training volume changes, the sharpness in their legs will change and that will lead to an even better performance in the pitch.”
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Who got the benefits out of Schmidt, Lowe, Aki, and Gibson Park?
Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
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