England’s historic defeat to Italy raises unthinkable question – and it could get worse for Steve Borthwick
Sat on high in a Roman colosseum, Steve Borthwick looked around to see his empire in decay. If defeats to Scotland and Ireland could be in part explained away as two off-days, a historic loss to Italy represented a new Six Nations low for England – and worse could still be to come.
Never previously have England ended a campaign with just a single win; with a trip to Paris to face pent-up French frustration in seven days’ time, contemplating any other outcome now feels fanciful.
If there could be no shame in losing to this ever-improving, ever more believing Italy, there could be shame again in the manner in which it happened – an eight-point lead squandered, a game in their grasp let slip by a side that had seemed to have put that sort of thing behind them. England looked ill-disciplined, ill-prepared and inaccurate – the very opposite of the side Borthwick has sought to forge. Even the great Roman emperor Aurelian would struggle for a solution to this crisis.
“We have to face the facts and face reality,” Maro Itoje told ITV. To extend some meagre credit to Borthwick, he had tried contrasting approaches in response to the two prior losses; first sticking, then twisting, but finding neither delivered the desired impact. Having talked up England’s depth throughout the 12-match winning run that had made them Six Nations contenders, it has been found desperately wanting.
The unthinkable question now for the Rugby Football Union (RFU) is whether drastic change is required. That may not – and probably should not – necessarily mean that Borthwick’s job is in peril, with senior figures from the union recently emphasising as much to The Independent. But results like this, however improved Italy are, can burst beyond the rugby bubble – to the casual watcher, who might have missed much of last year’s good times and still know the hosts as Six Nations stragglers, this will have felt like something very, very bad. There is also a sense that the English rugby public at large find Borthwick’s somewhat insipid public-facing persona not to their taste.
“The RFU, myself, Conor O’Shea [director of performance rugby] and Bill Sweeney [chief executive] speak regularly and discuss the vision of the team going forward,” Borthwick said. “We know the team have accelerated its development over the last 12 months and also understanding that right now in this Six Nations there are going to be some tough challenges ahead, and clearly, we have not got results in those challenges we have wanted.
“The team’s growth in the last 12 months has been very, very strong, and you can see the vision of where the team is going to be, and you see the players coming through. Right now, this is a tough period, but what we will do is learn from it and make sure we are stronger going forward. It is tough right now and we are not hiding away from the fact it is tough. We are not where we want to be in terms of results and in terms of performances.”
As Itoje emphasised, though, the group of players must take their share of the blame, too. If it was no great look for the England captain to be caught fiddling at a maul while Rome burned, it continued a theme of the tournament of Borthwick’s leaders letting him down.
“It’s on us as players,” the captain stressed. “We have to wear the performance. This team over the last year have put some good performances together; of recent, we haven’t. We are in a results-based business, and the result wasn’t good enough. As players, and as captain, I take responsibility for that.”
Another mid-cycle change is not at all in the RFU’s planning, not least because of the financial hit and considerable upheaval it suffered after the defenestration of Eddie Jones. Borthwick and his employers would probably, and rightly, point to last year’s run of wins as still considerably outweighing the three defeats that have followed. But the Six Nations matters most to all European nations. “We haven’t become a bad team overnight,” has been a common refrain in camp of late. Perhaps England have.
It may get worse, of course, before it gets better. Beyond Paris comes the Springboks in Johannesburg, an arduous trip at the best of times made harder by the fact that it will come at altitude, at the end of a long campaign in which some of England’s most experienced players are already struggling. Further Nations Championship games in Liverpool (against Fiji) and Santiago del Estero (against Argentina) will strain minds and bodies further – and not just those of the logistics managers.
Because there can be no question that something is broken with England now, trapped in their malaise. To fail to see a reaction two weeks running, to fall short of the high performance standards demanded of this competition for three, suggests that there is something larger to be solved.
Were the players pushed too hard pre-tournament when they spoke of an upping of training intensity? Must Borthwick move on from senior leaders who had served him well in 2025 and look to the future? Might more changes be made to a volatile coaching team that had, at last, seemed to be nearing a state of solidity? Certainly, a gameplan that has been figured out is in need of tweaking, with a return to their kick-heavy ways failing to bear enough fruit.
The seven days they have to prepare for a France backlash, and a date at a disorienting discotheque with silverware on the line, is no time to consider these questions.
Scotland, so impressive in a 90-point epic win over Les Bleus, are evidence of how quickly the wheel can turn, but Gregor Townsend got the reaction he commanded after defeat in Rome. So, too, Andy Farrell after Ireland’s no-show in Paris. It is fair to question why Borthwick has not impelled the same.
“We want England fans flooding across the Channel to Paris to come and watch the team in a massive encounter on the final round with the opportunity to achieve what we want,” Borthwick had somewhat hubristically declared ahead of this tournament. Instead, he may be coaching for his future.
