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The 'type of person' Steve Borthwick wants in England environment

(Photo by Kirsty O'Connor/PA Images via Getty Images)

New England boss Steve Borthwick has identified the type of person he wants in his national team’s environment as he looks to pick up the pieces of the Eddie Jones era. The English are coming off the back of their worst set of calendar year results since 2008, winning just five of their dozen matches in 2022 which resulted in the dismissal of Jones even though he had been contracted through to the completion of the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France.

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With the RFU on the record long ago that they would prefer an English coach to take over the role when it became vacant, ex-England skipper Steve Borthwick was always the front-runner having helped his country as an assistant to reach the 2019 World Cup final before joining Leicester Tigers and guiding them as head coach to Gallagher Premiership glory last June.

Six months after that crowning club glory at Twickenham, Borthwick visited England Rugby HQ at the start of this week to be officially unveiled as the national team successor to Jones with immediate effect.

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As part of the deal, Kevin Sinfield, the rugby league legend he recruited at the start of his Leicester reign in the summer of 2022, will also make the move into the international fold with England and Borthwick referenced his right-hand man when asked how busy he will be in the next few weeks getting a blueprint in place ahead of a 2023 Guinness Six Nations campaign that starts with a home game versus Scotland.

“There is plenty of work to do,” he admitted ahead of his first match before he swiftly changed the conversation to Sinfield. “I am delighted Kevin has joined us. That is the first step.

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“In any of the best teams I have played in and the best teams I have coached, you have a team where the players work so hard for each other. It is never perfect. They cover for each other, help each other, celebrate with each other, lift each other up when you get knocked down. The teammates are so, so tight.

“Now if there is a person that embodies that ethos the most, Kevin Sinfield does that. Just the type of person you want in your environment. Now Kevin is a top-quality coach, he is an incredible coach. I think he is an even better human being.”

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Under Jones, England had developed a frustrating habit of making stuttering starts to blocks of fixtures. During 2022, they lost away to Scotland in their Six Nations opener at BT Murrayfield, lost the opener Test in the series away to Australia, while last month’s Autumn Nations Series opened with a Twickenham defeat to Argentina.

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J
JW 35 minutes ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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LONG READ 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame' 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame'
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