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The Steve Borthwick message to England ahead of France Test
By PA
Steve Borthwick has vowed to ensure England deliver an improved performance against France after taking encouragement from his side’s defeat to Ireland in their Guinness Six Nations opener.
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Hot on the heels of an unsuccessful autumn, England were beaten 27-22 by the back-to-back champions in Dublin as their uninspiring run of results extended to seven losses in nine matches.
Since ultimately denying Ireland consecutive Grand Slams with a last-gasp 23-22 win in round four of last year’s tournament, a pair of victories over Japan is all Borthwick’s men have managed.
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England were handed a challenging start to the current championship and are now confronted with tricky home fixtures against Les Bleus and Scotland, which could quickly imperil Borthwick’s position as head coach.
“Ultimately we came up short, and I’m really disappointed we came up short because I thought we could win this game,” Borthwick said of Saturday evening’s setback.
“Our players gave that a good go, you certainly saw a belief in the players that they could come here and win the game.
“We didn’t so we’ll ensure that we’re a better team next week against France back at Twickenham. Immense credit to Ireland, it was a tough Test match and in that third quarter they did really well. That was probably the critical period.
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“I’m very proud of the way the players attacked the game in the first half and in the final quarter the way they came back and ultimately scored a couple of tries to get us the bonus point.”
Borthwick’s bold decision to select twin brothers Tom and Ben Curry alongside Ben Earl in a highly-mobile back row initially paid dividends as England established a 10-5 half-time lead at a sold-out Aviva Stadium.
But Ireland, who failed to capitalise on their first-half territory against dogged opposition temporarily depleted by a yellow card for Marcus Smith, eventually wrestled control and eased to a bonus-point success.
Late consolation tries from Tom Curry and Tommy Freeman, which added to an early score from debutant Cadan Murley and seven points from fly-half Smith, made the scoreline more respectable.
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Maro Itoje echoed Borthwick’s assessment after his first Test since replacing Jamie George as England captain failed to go to plan.
“Our role is to learn from it and build and get better,” said Itoje.
“There were large parts of our game which I think we took a step forward. The energy we had on the field, the vibrancy to our attack, and the way the guys were attacking and flooding through holes I thought was very admirable.
“We’re proud of the way the boys fought to the very end. We fought to get the losing bonus point and that’s definitely admirable. But, of course, there are things for us to learn and get better at.”
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The Curry brothers did play quite well but England picked 3 opensides and couldn't get the ball. Doesn't help that whenever we did get the ball we kicked it. Nothing wrong with kicking a lot but England need to vary their strategy more in the middle third. We didn't stress the Irish defence at all for large portions of the game and just kicked it back to them.
The thing which really puzzles me is England are the only international side in the world who relentlessly box kick possession away and we're also the most underperforming international side. There is a correlation here. It's clearly not working, let's try something different? The best sides kick a lot but our approach is so one dimensional right now, we have to mix in some multiphase play and keep some possession. It's no wonder we're struggling to close out games when we've spent the whole match tackling.
With Wigglesworth in charge of the attack the box kick is all he knows couple this to Borthwick's conservative approach and yesterday is the end result given that this is the coaching team's default position i do not expect much to change short term.