Steve Borthwick has claimed his England players were not fit enough for Test rugby when they began their autumn internationals after Saturday’s defeat by South Africa extended their dismal losing run.
In what could be construed as a tacit admission that Aled Walters’ departure has been keenly felt, Borthwick has risked the ire of Premiership clubs by stating that his players’ “condition” was not “where it needed to be” at the start of the month.
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.
On the eve of England’s autumn campaign, the RFU announced 17 players would be receiving enhanced contracts as part of the new eight-year £264m Professional Game Partnership, which gives Borthwick greater control over his squad, particularly their strength and conditioning. It is also supposed to lead to greater alignment over playing styles.
Over the summer, Borthwick was dealt a blow when Walters, his former head of strength and conditioning, resigned and jumped ship to Ireland. The long-serving strength and conditioning coach Tom Tombleson also left over the summer and although he has been replaced by Dan Tobin, Borthwick was blocked from bringing in Phil Morrow from Saracens to replace Walters for the autumn.
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.
After the defeat, Borthwick said: “Clearly we have played against a series of very good teams that have come off the back of the Rugby Championship, so they are Test match hardened. At the start of this series, you looked at the condition of the players and it wasn’t quite where it needed to be for Test match rugby, for teams stepping straight into Test match rugby.”
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.
Borthwick, who was at the Stoop on Sunday to cast his eye over a number of England hopefuls in the A side’s 38-17 win over their Australian counterparts, is expected to make changes to his matchday squad. Tom Curry and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso are likely to be available again after head injuries ruled them out of Saturday’s defeat, with Borthwick desperate to stop the rot before plotting a Six Nations campaign that begins against Ireland and France.
“I think we’ve got a lot of very good players in our squad,” he said. “I anticipate there will be one or two changes from [Saturday’s] squad. We will be preparing for this as well as we possibly can. We’ll be aiming to put in a performance that is a level above where we’ve been so far.”
England have conceded 12 tries in their three autumn matches, having also lost their defence coach Felix Jones over the summer. Borthwick, who appointed Joe El-Abd in his place, admitted the defence needed to improve but the full-back Freddie Steward gave the head coach a staunch backing and insisted the players must shoulder the blame.
“We almost let him down,” said Steward. “I don’t think the fault should go to him at all. As players we had a gameplan that put us in position to win that game [against South Africa]. We’ve got to look at ourselves as to why we didn’t pull away at the end and go back ahead.”
Meanwhile, it has emerged that Borthwick, the RFU’s chief executive Bill Sweeney and the performance director Conor O’Shea will not be paid six-figure bonuses after England’s poor results this year. According to The Times, the trio were in line for a windfall if England’s men met high win targets.