The Breakdown | Episode 33 | Looking ahead to Mitre 10 Cup

Freddie Steward at fullback is literally the best 15 under a high ball in the world, he's a freak... But he's also probably the slowest professional fullback in world rugby. He shouldn't be there and I think SB may now realise that too. Steward against Kolbe and Williams was a painful watch.

Our entire attack depends on Marcus Smith. If he ever gets injured we're screwed haha. Weirdly in the second half Smith didn't receive the ball much, we started playing off 9 a lot with the centred and forwards crashing it up. He's a one man attack plan though and he's doing a good job of making scorelines look a lot better than they should. If you take Marcus out, we're not scoring tries. The attack past ten is flaccid and dead.

I'm not getting on board I'm afraid. The fact that England are scoring tries and being competitive despite being so amazingly disorganised and managing to lose every match is even more frustrating. The players front up and make a good account of themselves physically but the defence since Felix Jones is so much less organised. Players are flying out the line all over the place, there is no cohesion at all... And the attack... Literally it's just Marcus Smith.. and a bit of Feyi Waboso. Almost every player in the backline has done nothing offensively because the structure just isn't there for it, there's nothing creative or innovative to challenge the defense. The last 20 mins against the Boks it was just runners on crash ball off the 9, over and over getting smashed behind the gainline and turned over. These players are capable of doing much better.

We did score tries under Eddie but the backs didn't create anything. It worked well for a while but when we no longer had a big pack with the likes of Haskell and the Vunipolas playing well, it stopped working very rapidly. Once we started losing the gainline and couldn't exert so much pressure through bullying, they suddenly all looked clueless and we finished 5th in consecutive six nations.

I'd love to be on board, I've watched every game for the last 15 years and what I see is just super frustrating. It's groundhog day. The same mistakes over and over and no sign of progress. They've pushed some good sides close in this series but there is no acknowledgement of the issues, they keep saying how close they are and they're a growing team etc... he's been in charge for 2 years and has hundreds of caps in the side. This will end poorly, he's not the right guy, but thank you for trying.

Well they would , considering he picks them .

They defended Eddie too..

We can all see that after 2 years ,while the play has speeded up ,the organisation is hopeless.

If you keep taking the captain off early , well what do you expect .

How many vice captains on the field ??

Too many.

England are almost there and will do well in the 6 nations ,but Borthwick has to decide his best team and keep it.

Not change it about and disrupt the momentum .

Smith has had to readjust to 2 number 9,,s and position on successive weekends . Madness.

Borthwick needs to change his thinking or go.

In seriousness, from a NZ perspective:

1 South Africa

2 France

3 New Zealand

4 Ireland

5 Argentina

6 Scotland

7 Australia

8 England

9 Fiji

10 Italy

In terms of trends Australia are on the way up and Ireland on the way down. The rankings don’t yet bear this out, but Australia’s next two matches might make it real. Notably, Ireland have an ageing side but Australia a young side.

I think, from a NZ perspective again, that we have the potential to go top again, but South Africa and France are clearly in the way currently. We do get to play both teams in series in 2025 though, so well worth aiming for that.

England has the population, wealth and history to be a top 5 rugby nation but it's not currently. Start from reality