So....

[Epaminondas Pules]

....that was the AIs.

I'm personally struggling to see much in the way of positives, and it feels largely like we've gone backwards, quite considerably.

One actual positive, in principle, is that we only conceded double figure penalties once this Autumn, against South Africa (13). Otherwise we kept our discipline largely in check; Japan (8); Aus (6); NZ (7). Another is we've seen Sleightholme take to international rugby, though we're seeing little movement off the wing from any of them. Baxter too has stepped up well so far.

Defensively we look all at sea, whilst also, again apart from South Africa, having to make considerably more tackles than our opponents. Even yesterday against Japan we made 145 to their 90! Our completion percentage was mid 80's, which itself is not great, but what really stood out is our whole system being fundamentally flawed, leading to individual bad decisions and mistrust in the inside man especially. We have lost Felix Jones, and now El-Abd has come in, so a certain amount of leeway afforded. But to be this bad in D is a big red flag!

From an attacking perspective we looked very blunt, apart from individual moments. We rarely, if ever, shift the point of contact, running what appears to be a simple defensive drill for the opposition. There is very little disguise or nuance to what we are doing, and no really obvious plan. We made 22 clean breaks all Autumn, from over 400 carries! Even yesterday against a real quite poor Japan side we looked laboured and rather dull. We don't look like we're going to cause teams problems.

We have, a pack that will go toe to toe with most teams physically; albeit our set piece looks shaky, both scrum and lineout. We do seem to have lost any real threat at the breakdown. Now whether that's other teams getting better at protecting the ball and ball carrier especially, but we don't look a threat at all. We have a decent pack, but it is not where it was. Stuart surprised me this Autumn, but Genge and George look a good way off. The backrow hasn't really clicked. And as a unit it's been underwhelming. The less said about the subs the better really.

Our backs, on paper, look dangerous. On the pitch we look stunted and without direction.

This calendar year we've won 5 games, only beating one team that were above us in the ranking, and only beating one team convincingly on the scoreboard, that being Japan twice.

I really don't know what direction we're going in. It feels like it is going to be a very tough 6 Nations. We could well find ourselves 0 from 3 going into the Italy game. It is really beginning to feel like the Ireland game and patches against France were the outliers in all this.

[Banquo]

He needs to either decide on the strategy he wants to use and pick players to match, or decide on picking the best players per position/unit and develop the strategies around that. Seems to be caught between the 2; on the horses for courses front, there is wiggle room, but there isn’t a core to fiddle around with, nor likely the time with the players to change style completely.

[Oakboy]

Simple question: Is Borthwick good enough to put things right from here?

Less simple question: If the answer is 'yes', then how?

Harder question: If the answer is 'no' is there resolve at the RFU to act now?

[Oakboy]

He needs to either decide on the strategy he wants to use and pick players to match, or decide on picking the best players per position/unit and develop the strategies around that. Seems to be caught between the 2; on the horses for courses front, there is wiggle room, but there isn’t a core to fiddle around with, nor likely the time with the players to change style completely.

I wonder how many hours he will have with the players before the Dublin match. Presumably, he and his coaching crew will try to get ready along the lines of one of your alternatives.

[Epaminondas Pules]

He needs to either decide on the strategy he wants to use and pick players to match, or decide on picking the best players per position/unit and develop the strategies around that. Seems to be caught between the 2; on the horses for courses front, there is wiggle room, but there isn’t a core to fiddle around with, nor likely the time with the players to change style completely.

I don't get the feeling that he knows what he wants us to be

[Banquo]

Simple question: Is Borthwick good enough to put things right from here?

Less simple question: If the answer is 'yes', then how?

Harder question: If the answer is 'no' is there resolve at the RFU to act now?

There’s no money, let alone resolve.


I’ve never thought he was the right guy tbh, but was hoping to be wrong. Not sure where he goes, though shoring up the defence would help, along with simplifying by actually settling on his units and a tighter smaller squad. And playing to their strengths.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Simple question: Is Borthwick good enough to put things right from here?

Less simple question: If the answer is 'yes', then how?

Harder question: If the answer is 'no' is there resolve at the RFU to act now?

No and No. IMHO.

[Banquo]

He needs to either decide on the strategy he wants to use and pick players to match, or decide on picking the best players per position/unit and develop the strategies around that. Seems to be caught between the 2; on the horses for courses front, there is wiggle room, but there isn’t a core to fiddle around with, nor likely the time with the players to change style completely.

I don't get the feeling that he knows what he wants us to be

Agreed. No vision, which is in line with character.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Simple question: Is Borthwick good enough to put things right from here?

Less simple question: If the answer is 'yes', then how?

Harder question: If the answer is 'no' is there resolve at the RFU to act now?

There’s no money, let alone resolve.


I’ve never thought he was the right guy tbh, but was hoping to be wrong. Not sure where he goes, though shoring up the defence would help, along with simplifying by actually settling on his units and a tighter smaller squad. And playing to their strengths.

Be interesting to see where he goes from here, either into his shell or being brave. I think he should do the later, but feel he will do the former. I don't think you can expect much more from this coaching team. They simply don't have the experience as a group, or for many as individuals. That's not their fault as such. It is Stinky Bumblast's fault granted.

[Epaminondas Pules]

He needs to either decide on the strategy he wants to use and pick players to match, or decide on picking the best players per position/unit and develop the strategies around that. Seems to be caught between the 2; on the horses for courses front, there is wiggle room, but there isn’t a core to fiddle around with, nor likely the time with the players to change style completely.

I don't get the feeling that he knows what he wants us to be

Agreed. No vision, which is in line with character.

At the top level he strikes me as a specific area coach, like lineout, where he has one function and responsibility only. Anything beyond that just doesn;t seem right for his character. Maybe at club level with day in day out time with the players.

[Oakboy]

At the top level he strikes me as a specific area coach, like lineout, where he has one function and responsibility only. Anything beyond that just doesn;t seem right for his character. Maybe at club level with day in day out time with the players.

I think you are right in that assessment but can it really be so if he was appointed in the first place? Somebody must have believed he had what it takes. Presumably, that same somebody considers he has no choice but to continue to back him - unfortunate as that may be for English rugby.

[Puja]

Again, there's a lot of very personal attacks on Brandname on this board, across several threads, that just seem to be relayed and accepted as fact. "Not intelligent", "no vision", "limited character", "no courage". I'm not discussing his England team's performances here or whether he is a good enough coach to get us to where we need to be - I'm shocked by the fact that we have apparently decided that it's okay, without any of us even having met the man, to say these things about him as a person.

Don't like his coaching or what he's doing for England? Fine. But please let's not build up this caricature of his personality by extrapolating from what we don't like about his team, and then use that caricature as fact when discussing where we should go from here. We don't know his character, so saying that it's not good enough for anything more than lineout coach is pretty shitty.

This goes doubly because he did have a pretty successful career before becoming our head coach. Granted, it's limited in that it's only two international jobs as forwards coach and then 1.5 seasons as Leicester head coach, but he has succeeded wherever he's gone so far, so I'm amazed that we feel okay calling him a talentless imbecile. He might not be the right man to be the England head coach - I don't know - but we're going too far into character assassination here and I don't like it.

Puja

[Epaminondas Pules]

There's been two comments about his character, one being a lack of vision, the other being me saying head coach at international level I don't think suits his character. It's hardly assassination!

[Mikey Brown]

He needs to either decide on the strategy he wants to use and pick players to match, or decide on picking the best players per position/unit and develop the strategies around that. Seems to be caught between the 2

That's well put. For all the talk of clarity and identity I don't think we have either. I feel like he wanted to dictate the style without it particularly suiting the players we have, and is now second guessing himself.

[Puja]

There's been two comments about his character, one being a lack of vision, the other being me saying head coach at international level I don't think suits his character. It's hardly assassination!

It's not just been this thread. It's been multiple occasions and multiple people - this is very much not just calling you out. Yours was just the last one before I posted.

Puja

[Banquo]

Again, there's a lot of very personal attacks on Brandname on this board, across several threads, that just seem to be relayed and accepted as fact. "Not intelligent", "no vision", "limited character", "no courage". I'm not discussing his England team's performances here or whether he is a good enough coach to get us to where we need to be - I'm shocked by the fact that we have apparently decided that it's okay, without any of us even having met the man, to say these things about him as a person.

Don't like his coaching or what he's doing for England? Fine. But please let's not build up this caricature of his personality by extrapolating from what we don't like about his team, and then use that caricature as fact when discussing where we should go from here. We don't know his character, so saying that it's not good enough for anything more than lineout coach is pretty shitty.

This goes doubly because he did have a pretty successful career before becoming our head coach. Granted, it's limited in that it's only two international jobs as forwards coach and then 1.5 seasons as Leicester head coach, but he has succeeded wherever he's gone so far, so I'm amazed that we feel okay calling him a talentless imbecile. He might not be the right man to be the England head coach - I don't know - but we're going too far into character assassination here and I don't like it.

Puja

Sorry, but he's a very well paid international coach and fans pay his wages; these are not ad hominem attacks from where I'm sitting. I'm sure he's a good guy, but saying he has no (visible) vision is pretty fair comment

And I have met him , not that its relevent.

You’ve extrapolated criticism into talentless imbecile. No one has come close to that.

[Oakboy]

Again, there's a lot of very personal attacks on Brandname on this board, across several threads, that just seem to be relayed and accepted as fact. "Not intelligent", "no vision", "limited character", "no courage". I'm not discussing his England team's performances here or whether he is a good enough coach to get us to where we need to be - I'm shocked by the fact that we have apparently decided that it's okay, without any of us even having met the man, to say these things about him as a person.

Don't like his coaching or what he's doing for England? Fine. But please let's not build up this caricature of his personality by extrapolating from what we don't like about his team, and then use that caricature as fact when discussing where we should go from here. We don't know his character, so saying that it's not good enough for anything more than lineout coach is pretty shitty.

This goes doubly because he did have a pretty successful career before becoming our head coach. Granted, it's limited in that it's only two international jobs as forwards coach and then 1.5 seasons as Leicester head coach, but he has succeeded wherever he's gone so far, so I'm amazed that we feel okay calling him a talentless imbecile. He might not be the right man to be the England head coach - I don't know - but we're going too far into character assassination here and I don't like it.

Puja

Puja, I accept that you feel compelled to stand up for him but I think you are over-reacting. Any comments made describe the way he is being seen to do the job as well as how well/badly he is doing it. I don't recognise the difference between coach and person that you are setting out. If any of us are being seen as personally insulting, no malice is intended against Borthwick the man. He chooses his public image after all.

[Mikey Brown]

I agree there are a lot of slightly weird assumptions being made about him on a personal level, though I'm not completely buying the cheery, happy-go-lucky persona we see in some of the press conferences. I think he is keen to put a positive face on things after Eddie, which I totally get, but sometimes it comes across a bit disingenuous. He seems like a very smart guy, but is maybe a bit caught between mindsets/strategies and loyalty to his mates/colleagues.

- There was a load of talk early on about focussing on "traditional strengths" - you know how having English genes mean you're innately good in the scrum - which seemed to go out the window half way through the 6 nations. I don't know if Marler fell out of favour because he was being a tosser or we just aren't prioritising the scrum anymore.

- Earl is a good example of the muddled thinking. On one hand I applaud trying something a bit different and rewarding good performances with continued selections, but he's looked less and less effective recently as he tries to do a 2016 Vunipola impression.

- Are we simply not interested in a big 8 who can carry through traffic? Are we not interested in developing a more natural 12? Maybe guys like Hill, Willis, Atkinson and Kelly are totally clear on where they're falling short, but I'd love to know.

- 12. Slade 13. Lawrence doesn't look bad on paper but it just isn't clicking. Slade having played 1 season (in the worst Exeter side for 10 years) as a blitz defender has somehow become a foundational part of this team, despite not being needed for the RWC.

- Spencer has two winning 60 minute appearances vs NZ & SA but is discarded because... who knows? Ben Curry is worth bringing on vs NZ but not anybody else. I wouldn't even mind if they'd never been involved, but I don't know what it is they did or didn't do correctly.

- I think many have gone a bit OTT on how good players are in the prem/ERC vs how bad they look for England. There is definitely some dead wood to be cut (and even Borthwick's approach to this is frustrating) but they are far from a bad group of players. Having options of a different style (Smith/Ford, Furbank/Steward etc.) should be a strength, in theory, but it just looks to be muddying the waters of both selection and strategy.

I've not managed to gather these thoughts in any logical order, but there you go.

[Banquo]

- Earl is a good example of the muddled thinking. On one hand I applaud trying something a bit different and rewarding good performances with continued selections, but he's looked less and less effective recently as he tries to do a 2016 Vunipola impression.

- Are we simply not interested in a big 8 who can carry through traffic? Are we not interested in developing a more natural 12? Maybe guys like Hill, Willis, Atkinson and Kelly are totally clear on where they're falling short, but I'd love to know.

- Spencer has two winning 60 minute appearances vs NZ & SA but is discarded because... who knows? Ben Curry is worth bringing on vs NZ but not anybody else. I wouldn't even mind if they'd never been involved, but I don't know what it is they did or didn't do correctly.

- I think many have gone a bit OTT on how good players are in the prem/ERC vs how bad they look for England.

These.

[fivepointer]

I do wonder what the effect of losing Felix Jones was for theses games. Maybe a bit more than we realise. Borthwick really needs all the coaching experience he can get i'd say.
Overall its been a series where we have treaded water at best.
There have been bright moments, produced some good play and we've scored a few nice tries. Against that weve laboured often, been easily pulled out of shape and committed too many dull errors.
Individually there is little to get excited about. No one has produced a definitive series of performances.
That we've played the same centres over 4 games is a terrible let down when the combination has hardly sizzled. Likewise the back row could surely have been freshened up a bit.
Of those who featured little or not at all, we must surely conclude that for a few their time with England is at an end. There is surely no point in picking Cole, Davison, Lozowski, Northmore and Daly again. Ben Curry and Dombrandt may not get picked but i think Coles is worth retaining, likewise Hill.
One positive was seeing AOF debut.

[jngf]

Given the struggles we have at 12 I still think Ben Earl could be tried in that role - the no.8 berth needs a rethink as what worked in the 6 Nations didn’t do so well against the packs of New Zealand, Australia and SA. CCS, Tom Willis or Dombrandt need to be given a look at in this role and you choose the flankers to be complementary.

[Epaminondas Pules]

- Earl is a good example of the muddled thinking. On one hand I applaud trying something a bit different and rewarding good performances with continued selections, but he's looked less and less effective recently as he tries to do a 2016 Vunipola impression.

- Are we simply not interested in a big 8 who can carry through traffic? Are we not interested in developing a more natural 12? Maybe guys like Hill, Willis, Atkinson and Kelly are totally clear on where they're falling short, but I'd love to know.

- Spencer has two winning 60 minute appearances vs NZ & SA but is discarded because... who knows? Ben Curry is worth bringing on vs NZ but not anybody else. I wouldn't even mind if they'd never been involved, but I don't know what it is they did or didn't do correctly.

- I think many have gone a bit OTT on how good players are in the prem/ERC vs how bad they look for England.

These.

Agreed, and I think a big issue at present is we feel a bit like Bath from a couple of years ago. On paper we look good, but it's just not working. We are less than the sum of our parts, which is likely to be a result of many factors, but is a big worry for me.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Given the struggles we have at 12 I still think Ben Earl could be tried in that role - the no.8 berth needs a rethink as what worked in the 6 Nations didn’t do so well against the packs of New Zealand, Australia and SA. CCS, Tom Willis or Dombrandt need to be given a look at in this role and you choose the flankers to be complementary.

Backrow balance across the piece is misaligned, though I feel we're being a bit OTT about how bad Earl has suddenly become. Some of which is I think he set his own bar very high and is not quite at his own levels of performance, if that makes sense.

On 12 I think we need a vision for how we are going to play and then look at who matches that vision most closely. What we have at the moment is a shoehorning Lawrence into 12, despite it being counterintuitive to how he plays for his club, of shifting Slade in one (appreciate they interchange somewhat) as a ball player. But he's not that kind of 12. That's much more of a Dingwall / Atkinson type of handler. I'm not saying they are the answer, but we (the coaching team) seem to be expecting Slade to be a different player than who he is. And for Lawrence to work better in the 13 channel we need much better vision for our whole attacking structure.

[FKAS]

Again, there's a lot of very personal attacks on Brandname on this board, across several threads, that just seem to be relayed and accepted as fact. "Not intelligent", "no vision", "limited character", "no courage". I'm not discussing his England team's performances here or whether he is a good enough coach to get us to where we need to be - I'm shocked by the fact that we have apparently decided that it's okay, without any of us even having met the man, to say these things about him as a person.

Don't like his coaching or what he's doing for England? Fine. But please let's not build up this caricature of his personality by extrapolating from what we don't like about his team, and then use that caricature as fact when discussing where we should go from here. We don't know his character, so saying that it's not good enough for anything more than lineout coach is pretty shitty.

This goes doubly because he did have a pretty successful career before becoming our head coach. Granted, it's limited in that it's only two international jobs as forwards coach and then 1.5 seasons as Leicester head coach, but he has succeeded wherever he's gone so far, so I'm amazed that we feel okay calling him a talentless imbecile. He might not be the right man to be the England head coach - I don't know - but we're going too far into character assassination here and I don't like it.

Puja

Sorry, but he's a very well paid international coach and fans pay his wages; these are not ad hominem attacks from where I'm sitting. I'm sure he's a good guy, but saying he has no (visible) vision is pretty fair comment

I think Puja is correct, it's a bit much generally.

In terms of how he wants the team to play? That is evidently obvious and has been since he arrived. The execution of that vision I can very much understand the questions of but some of the over the top reaction to the AIs by fans and ex players is ridiculous. Mainly the ex pros are hacks looking for clickbait to be fair.

Borthwick wants a physical, high work rate side that applies maximum pressure both sides of the ball and doesn't take unnecessary risks. Hence we have the blitz defence, the kick chase strategy aimed at not playing too many phases in the middle of the pitch etc etc.

As game plans go it's pretty clear and at the end of the 6Ns and on the summer tour it felt like we were on the cusp of realising that vision. Unfortunately we seem to have gone backwards during the AIs. Partly because Simply Boring picked too conservative a squad and partly because we've got a new defence coach and that's taking longer than we'd like to bed in. Add into that some of the players we could have very much done with were injured (Chessum, Mitchell and then IFW, Ford and Dombrandt coming to camp unfit) and others were in rank form (Furbank, Slade etc).

Most disappointing of all has been the attack for me, looked like it was starting to flourish in the summer and then had no width come the Autumn. I don't mind the risk adverse strategy that means we tend to open up when in the opponents half of the field but we didn't really open up bar the first 15 mins Vs Australia (after which we threw the ball around stupidly).

[Danno]

If the attack is the biggest problem we're not even watching the same TV channel