Steve Borthwick: England head coach below the highlight after one other late defeat to Australia

England’s turbulent yr below head coach Steve Borthwick continued on Saturday towards Australia.

A myriad of causes have been mooted as being behind England’s dysfunction below Borthwick – not least the departure of quite a few members of an expensively-assembled and fantastically-talented teaching employees.

With out a few of his key lieutenants, Borthwick’s staff have fallen to late defeats towards New Zealand and Australia within the autumn internationals and the staff has 4 wins from 10 Take a look at matches in 2024.

Ought to they lose both of the forthcoming video games towards Japan and South Africa, that will imply England could be sitting at 5 wins from a dozen matches throughout the yr. That’s the exact same file that noticed Eddie Jones disbursed with lower than two years in the past.

Nonetheless, it’s not the file itself, however quite the character of how England discover themselves on this place – and likewise how the followers at Twickenham (who voted en masse with their ft, leaving Allianz Stadium proper after the concession of the late Wallabies attempt) are feeling about it.

Borthwick’s aspect have been the architects of their very own downfall as soon as once more and noticed a 12-point benefit halfway by the primary half flip right into a 10-point deficit with little over 20 minutes remaining, earlier than squandering a late lead twice extra after they’d moved again forward within the closing minutes.

England skipper Jamie George criticised England’s leaky defence – they missed 35 tackles towards Australia – and pinpointed frailties on that aspect of the ball as the primary cause for a loss that has heaped strain on the staff.

“Leaking 42 points at home is unacceptable and a large part of that is down to loss of collisions,” the captain stated.

“Australia acquired front-foot ball and they have fairly good gamers out extensive who made us look susceptible.

“We are very proud in our defence. We massively believe in the system that we have but there are going to be some clips that will be difficult to watch because we needed to be more physical and make our tackles.

“Typically in a Take a look at match like that you just assume the job is finished. We took our foot off the gasoline. Credit score to Australia, they have been superb, however we can not hold doing that.”

George advised will probably be a troublesome one to observe again – and he was not mendacity. It seems the departure of defence coach Felix Jones, who handed in his resignation in August, has hit England exhausting.

The character of the departure was sudden. Jones was reported to have made his choice due to an “unstable working environment” below Borthwick.

Now, some England followers are calling for the Irishman – thought-about probably the greatest defensive minds within the recreation after his spell successful back-to-back World Cups with South Africa as a part of Rassie Erasmus’ employees – to interchange Borthwick following this newest capitulation.

Such an eventuality would definitely present a merciless irony for Borthwick, who selected to concentrate on particular person errors in his feedback after the Australia conflict.

“It’s a game we should have won. We were in a position to win multiple times,” he stated.

“When you turn over that much ball and make the game that unstructured against a team with that much pace, you’re giving them opportunities. We gave them far too many opportunities.

“Each England supporter and each England participant or anybody related to the staff is gutted proper now.”

With a file of simply 13 wins in 26 matches and with out a victory to talk of towards Scotland, France, South Africa, New Zealand or Australia, Borthwick remains to be trying to find options to win the largest of matches.

What’s subsequent?

England will look to return to successful methods and declare their first win of the autumn on November 16 once they face world champions South Africa at Allianz Stadium (5.40pm), whereas Australia face Wales on the Principality Stadium on November 17 (4.10pm).