England not improving under Steve Borthwick with Twickenham’s fortress reputation in tatters

Another England loss at Twickenham means there are growing questions for Steve Borthwick to answer
Another England loss at Twickenham means there are growing questions for Steve Borthwick to answer - Getty Images/David Rogers

Nobody had any appetite for platitudes this time. By the time the on-pitch announcer started trilling about “how deep the boys dug out there”, thousands had vacated their seats, sick of hearing England’s witlessness being excused to the tune of £159 a ticket.

“Sometimes you lose, sometimes you learn”: that had been the patronising official verdict on defeat by the All Blacks, but there was no sweetening the pill this time. To concede 42 points at home to a far-from-vintage Australia is to forfeit any right to mitigation.

The unpalatable truth is that Steve Borthwick, the man who talks so much about “learnings” that you suspect he could offer a masterclass in useless business jargon, has made this side more tactically hare-brained than ever.

He has not even reached his two-year anniversary as head coach, but already he has presided over the two worst Twickenham results in England’s history in terms of points shipped.

The blame for last year’s 53-10 humiliation by France was widely placed on Eddie Jones for bequeathing such a dysfunctional set-up, but now he has nowhere to hide.

Ask yourselves this: are Borthwick’s England truly performing any more convincingly than during the poisonous epilogue to his predecessor’s reign?

Borthwick drawing alarming parallels with Jones

Jones was fired after a calendar-year record of five wins in 12. If the next two Tests against South Africa and Japan go to form, Borthwick, with just four victories in 10 in 2024 so far, will have an identical record, strengthening the impression that his team are on a road to nowhere.

The pained grumbles in the crowd were a reaction to a series of inexplicable decisions. What earthly reason was there to shift Marcus Smith to full-back when England were chasing the game, beyond some blood pact to bring on George Ford after 60 minutes?

England's Ollie Lawrence (left) and Ollie Sleightholme (right) look on as Australia's Andrew Kellaway collects a wayward pass from England's George Ford to go on to score a try
Andrew Kellaway intercepts George Ford’s wayward pass before scoring, as Ollie Lawrence (left) and Ollie Sleightholme (right) are caught flat-footed - Getty Images/Andrew Kearns

The switch instantly unsettled them, with an awful Ford pass setting up Australia’s penultimate try through Andrew Kellaway and Smith drifting out of position for Max Jorgensen’s match-winning score.

And why did Borthwick condition them to resort to the box-kick at every opportunity? Every time Ben Spencer had the ball, his instinct was to launch it into the ionosphere. Against opponents of the Wallabies’ verve, it was a fateful miscalculation.

Australia simply had greater ambition than England. They were defter in their handling skills, more incisive with their attacking lines, more wedded to a philosophy of running the ball rather than constantly kicking it away.

Jorgensen’s try at the death was a delight, arising from some scintillating movement. No sooner did Tate McDermott spot a chance on the left than there were five slick passes in the blink of an eye, leaving the lightning 20-year-old wing a clear path in the corner. You were left both marvelling at the slickness of it all and despairing why England could not conjure the same.

The attack coached by Richard Wigglesworth was hopelessly unstructured by comparison, with too much slow ball from Spencer and an over-reliance on Smith to produce some magic to rescue them.

The fault-lines are worrying: it is not just that England are incoherent, displaying no consistency of approach from week to week, but they so routinely fold at moments of maximum pressure.

Defensively they were haphazard, posing uncomfortable questions of Borthwick’s set-up – especially when Felix Jones, one of the world’s finest defensive coaches, saw fit to leave after just seven months.

We are approaching a tipping point. It was South Africa’s visit in the autumn of 2022 that finally did for Jones, with the discontent at Twickenham boiling over into outright mutiny, as England found themselves booed off.

Regressive England missed 35 tackles

Borthwick has yet to suffer the same indignity, but the mood is precarious. This was his moment to show how much progress he had inspired, and yet his players have gone backwards, so off-key in their execution that they missed 35 tackles.

Next Saturday the Springboks are back in town, and you shudder to imagine what punishment they might inflict. If the scoreline becomes too ugly, the strain on Borthwick threatens to become intolerable. He has tossed away Twickenham’s reputation as a fortress and is running out of ways to justify the malaise.

It is as if England are performing at three-quarters speed at times, so leaden and indecisive do they appear. There is complacency, too. It was astonishing to listen to Jamie George admit as captain that they thought they had Australia beaten after 20 minutes. What did this say about the mentality Borthwick had imparted?

England's head coach Steve Borthwick looks on during the Autumn Nations Series 2025 match between England and Australia
Borthwick’s side are repeatedly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory - Getty Images/Andrew Kearns

While the best teams understood how to keep their boots on their opponents’ throats, these players make a fast start and then immediately ease off.

The only “learning” England could claim here was to learn how to throw away an advantage in the second quarter of a game rather than the fourth, as they converted a 15-3 lead into a 20-18 deficit, the first occasion that they had conceded 20 points by half-time in six years.

The Rugby Football Union has much to answer for, having entrusted Borthwick until the 2027 World Cup. Never mind negotiating the next three years, England are desperately working out how they can navigate the next two games.

They are staring down the barrel at a fifth consecutive defeat to a southern-hemisphere team, an utterly wretched record given the riches at their disposal.

The speed with which the stadium emptied should serve as a salutary lesson: these supporters’ patience could very soon be exhausted.