Steve Borthwick insists he has RFU's 'absolute support and belief'

Steve Borthwick has insisted his job isn’t under threat despite England falling to their fifth defeat in row on Saturday and their seventh loss in their last nine matches. Having already agonisingly lost to New Zealand and Australia in this Autumn Nations Series by two- and five-point margins, they again relinquished a second-half lead against South Africa and were ultimately beaten 20-29.

Borthwick is under contract with the RFU through to the end of the 2027 Rugby World Cup, but the goodwill built up with supporters during last year’s bronze medal campaign at France 2023 is now ebbing away.

A previously blunt attack has been finessed and England are scoring some delightful tries, but they have lost key staff members in recent times.

Rassie Erasmus has his say on Felix Jones absence from the England coaching setup

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Rassie Erasmus has his say on Felix Jones absence from the England coaching setup

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The four tries scored by South Africa brought to 12 the number conceded under new defence coach Joe El-Abd, who was brought in as the successor to Felix Jones, who wanted out after just eight months after joining from the Springboks.

England have one more match remaining in their November campaign – next weekend against Eddie Jones’ Japan – and Borthwick departed Twickenham on Saturday night adamant that his job wasn’t on the line despite the run of losses.

“I am not going to be talking about private conversations,” he said in the aftermath of the nine-point loss to the Springboks. “What is more important is the feeling I get. The feeling I get from the RFU is one of absolute support and absolute belief that this team is going in the right direction. That is the feeling of everybody of the RFU.

“I am very confident that we are on the right path and I am very confident that I am working with a great group of coaches, a great group of players. I am very confident that we would be on a trajectory where we are moving forward. We want things to happen. It’s not happening now. We aim to put in a better performance next week against Japan.

“I am very confident with the full coaching and management team we have. Ultimately we are getting in positions to win games, so it says there are a lot of things being done really, really well… It’s tough right now, it’s painful, but we will be a better team because of these experiences.”

Regarding his team’s latest second-half bow-out, Borthwick added: “What we saw clearly, particular the last part, we had plenty of entries in their 22 to score but just small lapses, small moments that in the magnitude of the game end up being hugely significant.”

Asked if he retained full belief that the team was moving in the right direction under Borthwick, as the head coach had just insisted, skipper Jamie George said: “I couldn’t agree more.

“Of course we are disappointed with the results and we wanted to give the England fans three wins from three, of course we did, and if you look at the three Test matches individually there are definitely things we needed to get better.

“But you look at today, I was really proud of the team the way they fronted up physically and we created opportunities against a world-class team.”