Top 14 : les compos des matches de dimanche

Imo there is no lack of talent, but execution and accuracy has been very poor. I lay that at the coaching staff's door.

All England coaches face intense media scutiny and Borthwick is no exception. The media pressure is a reflection of the fact ppl don't want to pay 150 quid for a Twickers ticket to watch the ball being booted up in the air all day.

Incidentally, England had two decent performances in the WC [and throughout 2023 as a whole] playing the way you favour and one was in the semi-final and the other v Argy in the pool.

For the rest of 2023, they were somewhere between dire and uninspired. So how do you work out SB abandoned a 'winning method' on that basis?

So basically you want to start again from the WC semi-final side?

"he highly organized Irish attack was also another that didn't require much from the 10"

no, it required a lot from the 10, hence why they thrived with a George Ford style organiser in Johnny Sexton.

"it is in fact your two which would require even more change to make the most of than Marcus Smith"

my two being Ford and Fin? That's just demonstrably false. England have looked far superior with Ford at 10 than they have with Marcus.

Given that you work in the media I don't think you should be simply pointing to the existence of detrimental media pressure, you should be doing what you can to shape the narrative. Do you think Borthwick should have faced the sack if he didn't produce an entertaining product? do you think it is right or wrong that building a team around Marcus Smith is seen as a test case for England playing better rugby?

In terms of who has the most growth left in them, its Fin. I think we can say that with certainty now that Marcus has been England's main man for almost 4 years (since summer 2021 Smith has started 26 tests at fly-half; Ford has started 10; and Farrell 18 at fly-half or inside centre) and performances have got consistently worse throughout that time.

Fin runs it a lot more than Ford (although so did Ford when he was younger!) but in terms of his connectivity to his forwards pods he's a lot closer to Ford than to Marcus. Dan Biggar agrees with me, if that's worth anything.