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The 'type of person' Steve Borthwick wants in England environment
By Liam Heagney
New England boss Steve Borthwick has identified the type of person he wants in his national team’s environment as he looks to pick up the pieces of the Eddie Jones era. The English are coming off the back of their worst set of calendar year results since 2008, winning just five of their dozen matches in 2022 which resulted in the dismissal of Jones even though he had been contracted through to the completion of the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France.
With the RFU on the record long ago that they would prefer an English coach to take over the role when it became vacant, ex-England skipper Steve Borthwick was always the front-runner having helped his country as an assistant to reach the 2019 World Cup final before joining Leicester Tigers and guiding them as head coach to Gallagher Premiership glory last June.
Six months after that crowning club glory at Twickenham, Borthwick visited England Rugby HQ at the start of this week to be officially unveiled as the national team successor to Jones with immediate effect.
As part of the deal, Kevin Sinfield, the rugby league legend he recruited at the start of his Leicester reign in the summer of 2022, will also make the move into the international fold with England and Borthwick referenced his right-hand man when asked how busy he will be in the next few weeks getting a blueprint in place ahead of a 2023 Guinness Six Nations campaign that starts with a home game versus Scotland.
“There is plenty of work to do,” he admitted ahead of his first match before he swiftly changed the conversation to Sinfield. “I am delighted Kevin has joined us. That is the first step.
“In any of the best teams I have played in and the best teams I have coached, you have a team where the players work so hard for each other. It is never perfect. They cover for each other, help each other, celebrate with each other, lift each other up when you get knocked down. The teammates are so, so tight.
“Now if there is a person that embodies that ethos the most, Kevin Sinfield does that. Just the type of person you want in your environment. Now Kevin is a top-quality coach, he is an incredible coach. I think he is an even better human being.”
Under Jones, England had developed a frustrating habit of making stuttering starts to blocks of fixtures. During 2022, they lost away to Scotland in their Six Nations opener at BT Murrayfield, lost the opener Test in the series away to Australia, while last month’s Autumn Nations Series opened with a Twickenham defeat to Argentina.
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Latest Comments
Yes I was surprised at how close the pen count was - the spread between best and worst being just 2. The number of yellow cards though will surely be something the Boks will look to address
Go to commentsBriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistol! Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistol! Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistol!
It's incredible to see the boys playing like this. Back to the form that saw them finish on top of the regular season and beat Toulon to win the challenge cup. Ibitoye and Ravouvou doing a cracking Piutau/Radradra impression.
It's abundantly clear that Borthwick and Wigglesworth need to transform the England attack and incorporate some of the Bears way. Unfortunately until the Bears are competing in Europe, the old criticisms will still be used.. we failed to fire any punches against La Rochelle and Leinster which goes to show there is still work to do but both those sides are packed full of elite players so it's not the fairest comparison to expect Bristol to compete with them. I feel Bristol are on the way up though and the best is yet to come. Tom Jordan next year is going to be obscene.
Test rugby is obviously a different beast and does Borthwick have enough time with the players to develop the level of skill the Bears plays have? Even if he wanted to? We should definitely be able to see some progress, Scotland have certainly managed it. England aren't going to start throwing the ball around like that but England's attack looks prehistoric by comparison, I hope they take some inspiration from the clarity and freedom of expression shown by the Bears (and Scotland - who keep beating us, by the way!). Bristol have the best attack in the premiership, it'd be mad for England to ignore it because it doesn't fit with the Borthwick and Wigglesworth idea of how test rugby should be played. You gotta use what is available to you. Sadly I think England will try reluctantly to incorporate some of these ideas and end up even more confused and lacking identity than ever. At the moment England have two teams, they have 14 players and Marcus Smith. Marcus sticks out as a sore thumb in a team coached to play in a manner ideologically opposed to the way he plays rugby, does the Bears factor confuse matters further? I just have no confidence in Borthers and Wiggles.
Crazy to see the Prem with more ball in play than SR!
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