'Very pleased': The Steve Borthwick reaction to England pipping Italy

Steve Borthwick has described himself as “very pleased” with his England team despite their hugely unimpressive 27-24 win over Italy in Rome.

The English went into their opening round Guinness Six Nations game with fans expecting them to impressively build on their bronze medal finish at the recent Rugby World Cup.

However, they endured a poor start, trailing 0-10 and 8-17 during a first half that ended with them losing 14-17. It was only when Alex Mitchell struck for a try five minutes into the second half that England finally managed to hit the front.

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They went on to pull 27-17 clear but rather than motoring on to secure a four-try bonus win, they instead allowed Italy to strike for their third try in the fifth minute of added time and clinch a losing bonus point.

Nevertheless, the scrappy win was a first for England at the start of the Six Nations since 2019 and Borthwick was keen to dwell on the positives post-game rather than admit the performance wasn’t up to the required standard against an opposition they have never lost to at Test level.

“Very pleased with the result and very pleased with the players, they found a way to change the game at the mid-point of the game and found a way to get a result,” enthused the head coach.

“There were areas that we improved upon from where we have been and were trying to work on in the preparation period that we had. It was brilliant to see five players make their debut for England in one matchday in the Six Nations, which doesn’t happen very often.

“Having said that, there were plenty of areas we need to be better at. We gave Italy scores too easily and we need to improve our defence.

“In that first half, while we had lots of possession in the attacking half and the speed of our ball was much quicker and the ball movement was improved, we didn’t break the line as much as we wanted to.”

The debut-making back-rower Ethan Roots was deemed to be the official player of the match, but fellow rookie Fraser Dingwall had his issues in defence on an afternoon where Chandler Cunningham-South, Fin Smith and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso earned their first caps off the bench.

“You don’t want to single individuals out. It’s a special day for all five of them and a special day for me to be involved with them at the start of their England careers,” said Borthwick when asked for his assessment of his rookie roster.

“Just chatting to them in the changing rooms, they are going to be wearing the England shirt for a long time… I think Ethan Roots looked very much at home. He was outstanding.

“And for Fraser in the centres, when you have got a different combination – and this is one of the challenges of playing in the centre having never played with that 10 and that 13 before – I thought he did really well to help glue that combination together.

“The ball movement improved a lot,” he added when asked what helped England to engineer comeback win. “The midfield showed that they can move these balls to the edges a lot and there was some improved areas we felt we had signs of an advantage but we weren’t playing to those areas enough.

“So I asked the players to place greater emphasis on those areas and with Jamie George’s leadership everyone did. That then led to that third-quarter being very strong for us.

“This group is so keen to run hard and train hard. That has been like every day. It has been a pleasure to coach this group and they are going to improve fast because they are so keen to learn. We’ll learn fast from today.”

England endured an injury-hit build-up to the tournament before and during their warm-weather preparation camp in Girona, and those problems were added to by the late withdrawal of Ellis Genge with a foot injury which resulted in Beno Obano becoming the replacement loosehead.

Borthwick reckoned Genge would be fit for selection for Wales, a match that the currently absent George Martin could also be available for following his injury issue. “I would be really hopeful Ellis will be available for next weekend.

“He trained on Thursday, felt something, was scanned Friday morning and it’s a small recurrence of something that happened in the past.”