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Steve Borthwick has his say on damning Care criticism of Eddie Jones

By PA
Eddie Jones (left) with Steve Borthwick at the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan (Photo by Clive Rose/World Rugby via Getty Images)

Steve Borthwick has distanced his England from the Eddie Jones regime damningly described by Danny Care, revealing he has an open door policy and encourages collaboration from his players. Care wrote in his autobiography, which is being serialised in The Times, that everybody was “bloody terrified” of “despot” Jones, who was England’s head coach from 2015 to 2022.

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The 101-cap scrum-half, now retired from international rugby, added that players felt like “characters in a dystopian novel” because of the “toxic” methods used by Jones. Borthwick worked as an assistant coach under Jones with Japan and England before eventually replacing his former boss at Twickenham when he was sacked after a slump in results two years ago.

While declining to “talk about somebody’s experience” in reference to Care’s claims, Borthwick insisted that he has created a culture where his players are allowed their voices. When asked if he is challenged by his squad, Borthwick replied: “There are plenty of times where we have ideas and we discuss them. It’s almost on a daily basis.

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“I’ll be chatting with players and bouncing ideas around and then things get moulded, adapted and improved. The players are the ones on the pitch who know the game better than anyone else. The best players are the best coaches and luckily we have some great, great minds in this group.

“In this autumn we have had a notable step forward in terms of the players speaking in team meetings, sharing their opinions. I’m trying to create an environment that is right for this group at this time. I finished (as forwards coach with) England very early in 2020 and now we are here in 2024.

Team Form

Last 5 Games

0
Wins
2
5
Streak
2
12
Tries Scored
21
-24
Points Difference
-26
2/5
First Try
3/5
3/5
First Points
2/5
2/5
Race To 10 Points
3/5

“You can ask players and assistant coaches whatever you want to ask them about the environment now.”

Borthwick added that his England set-up is subject to regular oversight from Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney and executive director of performance rugby Conor O’Shea, as well as being open to visitors from the wider game. “Bill and I speak every week either in person or on the phone. Bill was in camp last week and he’ll be in camp at the end of this week,” the former Leicester director of rugby said.

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“Conor was in on Monday, he spent half a day in camp. The England U18s and U20s coaches have been in. There is a lot of interaction. Every Premiership club is very welcome to come in if they want to.”

England enter Saturday’s clash with Australia with the same starting personnel that fell to a 24-22 loss to New Zealand at Allianz Stadium. The only positional change to the XV sees Henry Slade and Ollie Lawrence swap midfield positions in the hope of inducing greater output in attack from the centres.

The bench returns to a five/three split between forwards and backs, with Luke Cowan-Dickie poised to make his first Test appearance for two years after displacing Theo Dan as replacement hooker. Ben Curry drops out of the 23 altogether, while Ollie Sleightholme is promoted as the third back.

George Ford missed a last-gasp drop goal against the All Blacks but Borthwick has blamed the set-up for the kick and not the substitute fly-half for the costly miss. “If you look at that series of plays, it starts from the scrum. Ultimately, they put pressure upon our scrum ball, which then eventually led to George being put under pressure,” he said.

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“We didn’t give George the platform he required, so that is a frustration. It will be something we well do better in the future.”

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1 Comment
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Tom 14 days ago

Took me ages to read in my internal Borthwick voice.

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JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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