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'Best in the world': The Steve Borthwick verdict on Farrell's Ireland
By Liam Heagney
England boss Steve Borthwick has labelled Andy Farrell’s Ireland as the best team in the world despite them not winning the recent Rugby World Cup.
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The Irish were eliminated in the quarter-finals in France, losing out to the All Blacks in a tournament where Borthwick’s English emerged from the weaker side of the draw to win the bronze medal final.
Three rounds into the 2024 Guinness Six Nations, Farrell’s side are leading the way at the top and on course to claim back-to-back Grand Slam titles for the first time.
In contrast, Borthwick’s England are licking their wounds following their surrender away to Scotland, a 21-30 loss putting an end to what had been their best start to the championship since 2019 thanks to wins over Italy and Wales.
The Irish are now Twickenham-bound on Saturday as red-hot favourites to take another successful step towards their second successive clean sweep.
Borthwick has complimented them on their form, labelling them as the world’s best but added that England are still determined to pull off an upset result.
“About Ireland, right now we would all agree they are the best team in the world,” he said on Thursday afternoon after confirming a starting XV that has three changes from Scottish Gas Murrayfield.
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Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, Alex Mitchell and George Martin have all been named to start on this occasion at the expense of the benched Elliot Daly and Danny Care, and the excluded Ethan Roots.
“Might not have won the World Cup but right now, the way they have been playing, the way they have been playing through the first period of this championship, they are the best team in the world.
“Their attack is probably the best in the world. Now it’s going against a defence that wants to put people under a lot of pressure, so we are going to be really tested there and I am really looking forward to seeing our defence under this test.
“What we have been able to do is force teams to change the way they have been playing a little bit, we have forced teams to make a number of errors and then we started to have the ability to capitalise off the back of those turnovers that are created.
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“Now quite clearly if you are playing against Ireland, if they are allowed to get into their rhythm then they are a very strong side. So we need to ensure they don’t get into that rhythm and then from there, maximise the opportunities and how quickly we take them.”
Defending his 19-game record in charge of England since the start of the 2023 Six Nations, Borthwick added: “I have said over the last period about the team evolving. I said from having the foundations in place we need to keep evolving.
Andy Farrell explains his recall of Hugo Keenan, the non-selection of Garry Ringrose, and the "freak" training ground injury sustained by the absent James Ryan, with Liam Heagney ?? #ENGvIRE #GuinnessM6N #IrelandRugby #rugby pic.twitter.com/R0SBBPNOtx
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) March 7, 2024
“Part of that is evolving tactically, evolving technically, evolving physically, so evolving the squad composition and makeup of the players. You can see that is changing over this period.
“But let’s be clear here, while we are respectful of those factors, we go into every game wanting to win. Our aim is to get the result that we want.”
Skipper Jamie George backed up his coach at the media briefing, claiming: “I entirely agree. It could be very easy for an excuse to be made that we are in transition or whatever you might want to call it.
“We’re here to win this, we’re here to take on the best team in the world at Twickenham and there are going to be no excuses going into this game and we are very excited about that.”
If Hansen or Erasmus said this I would listen. But coming from somebody like Borthwick, it means nothing. What exactly has Borthwick won? Nothing. His opinion means nothing
We shall see when they come to Loftus 😉
I believe England should use a selection panel made up of ex-players and take selection out of the coach’s hands. Let the coach, coach. It would limit how much damage a head coach can do. It would also mitigate the tendency of a coach to have favourites. If a selection panel was used for this game, Earl would not be playing eight, Chessum would not be playing at six and Care would not be ahead of Spencer. Also, Mercer would be involved.
And previously, if a selection panel had been used, Don Armand, Dave Ewers, Alex Goode, Dan Robson, Nick Tompkins and Danny Cipriani would not have been overlooked.
Mind games. So obvious that it’s not worth wasting the breath to say it. Won’t work; no way England beats Ireland this year.
I know the whole ‘best in the world’ thing is Borthwick trying to put pressure on Ireland and take pressure off England, but it’s such a weird statement. Is Ireland the best active international team at the moment? Probably. But how do you judge the wider pecking order when the Boks and All Blacks have not played since October last year? Also in terms of quality, this has been one of the worst Six Nations for a while with France, England and Wales all really poor. You can say that Ireland have been the best of a bad bunch (although Scotland might still have a say), but ‘best in the world’ seems very premature. Brilliant motivation for the Boks, mind.