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The 'excited' Irishman fighting hard for Steve Borthwick's England
By Liam Heagney
Following a couple of weeks of grumblings about Irish gremlins affecting the Steve Borthwick rebuild with England, last Wednesday at Allianz Stadium, the new corporate name for Twickenham, was a sharp reminder that the RFU still very much has Irish enthusiasm in the guise of Conor O’Shea spurring its national team on to aspired greatness.
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Borthwick’s stewardship has come under intense public scrutiny following the shock decision by assistant Felix Jones to hand in his resignation at a time when England’s fortunes on the field were improving.
The former Ireland full-back, who retired from playing in 2015 and went on to become a double Rugby World Cup winner with South Africa, was viewed as the real deal, someone whose defence coach work for Borthwick since the start of the 2024 Guinness Six Nations had been mightily impressive apart from the capitulation at Scottish Gas Murrayfield.
It was felt he was in it for the long haul and would be in line for a multi-year contract extension. Instead, he delivered his resignation and will be gone by the end of this year if not earlier.
Contrast that short-lived flirtation with the joined-at-the-hip relationship O’Shea, another former Ireland full-back, has with England. It was 2020 when the 2012 Premiership title-winning Harlequins boss stepped into the fold, becoming the RFU’s director of high performance following a four-year stint as Italy boss.
He was always affable, the type of glass-half-full character whose knack for espousing the positive dated back to his time as a player in a mid-to-late 90s era when the Ireland national team was more frequently than not a laughing stock that struggled to adjust to the dawning of professional rugby.
Striking this upbeat note has remained his modus operandi throughout his considerable post-playing career and just eight weeks after RugbyPass amenably bumped into him beavering away in the busy lobby of the England U20s team hotel at the World Rugby Junior Championship in Cape Town, he was again Mr Positivity all through last Wednesday’s media briefing unveiling of the new eight-year professional game partnership.
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Was Jones quitting so shortly after the loss of fitness gurus Aled Walters, who is joining Andy Farrell’s Ireland, and Tom Tombleson confirmation of a backroom crisis on Borthwick’s watch? “It is disappointing. Of course we are disappointed. But in sport you move on incredibly quickly,” O’Shea insisted. “We’re very comfortable with where we’re at.”
Less than 48 hours later, the RFU director played a hidden trump card, confirming the recruitment of Irishman Dan Tobin from the set-up at Gloucester to join Borthwick’s staff as an S&C coach in time for the upcoming Autumn Nations Series which begins with the November 2 home clash with New Zealand.
England head into that four-match programme at breakeven for 2024, winning four of their eight matches so far in this calendar year, but O’Shea’s glass half-full perspective was emphasised in one particular reply during a lengthy Q&A where he shared the top-table duties in The Lock suite at Allianz Stadium with RFU chief Bill Sweeney, Premiership Rugby duo Simon Massie-Taylor and Phil Winstanley, and Christian Day of the RPA.
“Anyone looking in at the age profile – the type of profile of this England team, the growth that is in that team at the moment, the players that are potentially coming into that England team – is only looking at it and going ‘England is only going one way’.”
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It was during the introductory opening salvo part of the PGP presentation where O’Shea giddy enthusiasm regarding England’s potential was best articulated on the day.
The high performance director breezily cooed about the national team’s ambition after 18 months of negotiations resulted in a deal that gives Borthwick an elite player squad of 50, of which 25 can be on enhanced terms and conditions where the national head coach has the final say on each player’s sports science and medical situations.
“This is probably the nub of everything for me. It’s what excites me over what can happen over the coming years on all levels, having the best club and country system you can possibly have,” he began.
“What does that mean? You can overcomplicate rugby in my opinion and you can oversimplify it but ultimately, if you get your best players on a pitch, fit and in good shape, you have a chance of winning and our job, both for club and country, is to make sure our best players are in the best shape possible to play at the highest level and you win for club, you win for country.
“Some of the stuff is looking at what we control, look the enhanced elite player squad, the EPS squad and that mix between enhanced EPS and EPB but actually, fundamentally, we want every player to be the same. We want every player to have an IDP (individual development plan) which is co-created and not just by club and country, but also by player.
“I was talking to Steve on Tuesday night. You probably saw the process in Northampton of the club and country coaches all sitting in the room with the player going through things. Is there a difference between club and international rugby? Of course there is.
“So how do we get the players ready for that international level? That is the purpose bit of the enhanced EPS. Steve has a right to pick up to 25 players but he probably won’t this year – he is very open about that.
“We want people to really want and strive, we want them to be exemplars, we want them to look and say that is what we need to be but the core group of players that we have, at the end of it Steve’s job is to pick the best team for England to play whether you are enhanced, whether you are EPS or whether you are outside of it.
“If you are the best you will get picked and everyone needs to strive for that, but we believe that core group will form the core group of what that successful team looks like. I also think we have got potentially a real generational team in the offing as we develop this over the coming years.
“That England A team and its reintroduction is a fundamental little bridge, not just for players but also for coaches to operate in a different environment and getting used to being away from your club you spend all your time with, adapting to different styles, different coaching and seeing how those players transfer from U20 through to that senior level.
“Games against Australia, Ireland at Ashton Gate in February and another game to be announced next summer ahead of our tour are important and we will play three to four of those games every year. We will have a mix of RFU and club coaching and give an opportunity for everyone.
“I am really excited about that group of young players, and you saw our U20s this year, I’m not going to put any pressure on them but I believe our U20s next year are going to be a step up again.
“It doesn’t mean they will win the Junior World Cup but when you look at the age profile we have got, the players that are coming through, if we manage them in the right way with club and country we can get the best for both (club and country).
“Again, from that IDP process that has gone on, probably at this stage they [the clubs] will be sick of us going out on the road… but there is a real focus to make sure we work together to make the best for those players and that they fulfil their potential.
“I’d love it [the PGP deal] to be a silver bullet, love it for everything to work like that straight away, but what we will do is we will implement, we will look back and we have actually said to all the DoRs and we have two more meetings this week, let’s go for it, let’s sit back in January, February and say what have we done, what could we do better and how can we make this improve.
“The idea for the whole of this is it’s not an eight-year agreement that myself and Phil are going to look at and go in clause 2.4 this is what it says, there is no movement. This is us being able to be flexible and adaptable to make sure that we have got the principles but we drive to make it better all the time.
“Our shop window is our show window and we have moved to a stage where we know we are competitive, we want to be competitive and win and we want to be competitive and win on a regular basis and that’s the challenge.
“But incredibly excited and the feedback, I have just spoken to Jamie (George, the England captain) just before coming in here about a few other things and he just mentioned he sat down with his IDP and said, ‘Wow, I sat down with it going I wish this had been done before in this way’.
“Is it going to be perfect? No. But you can feel there is a step change in what we are doing and that collaboration with team England, within the new professional rugby board will be essential… I’m excited.”
