Steve Borthwick does not believe he will be sacked despite poor results while Freddie Stewart says the players should shoulder the blame
Steve Borthwick said ‘the condition of the players wasn’t quite where it needed to be for Test match rugby’ following their defeat to the Springboks.Steve Borthwick said ‘the condition of the players wasn’t quite where it needed to be for Test match rugby’ following their defeat to the Springboks.
England have lost all three of their autumn Tests and five matches in a row for the first time since 2018. Borthwick has insisted he has “absolute support” from the Rugby Football Union and it is understood his employers have no desire to sack the head coach despite England’s plight.
Before England’s first autumn defeat against New Zealand, Borthwick took his squad to a warm-weather training camp in Girona but he believes his players were not in the desired shape at the start of the campaign. In defeats by New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, England have struggled in the final 20 minutes. The Springboks head coach, Rassie Erasmus, questioned whether England had the fitness levels to maintain their aggressive defence before his side’s 29-20 win at Twickenham.
England complete their autumn campaign against Eddie Jones’s Japan on Sunday in a fixture they will be expected to win emphatically. Jones was in charge the last time England lost five on the bounce before Danny Cipriani inspired a hard-fought victory over South Africa in Cape Town. Borthwick was Jones’s assistant at the time and revealed the pair had been in contact last week. The pressure on him will mount should Japan pull off a shock victory.
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