The Rugby Football Union (RFU) has reiterated its backing for Steve Borthwick after extending the contracts of the England coaching staff through to the summer of 2028.
Borthwick and his existing coaches will lead the side into next year’s World Cup with the union confident that they can bounce back from a disappointing Six Nations.
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Having axed Eddie Jones with less than a year to go to the last tournament, the RFU has been keen to avoid a repeat of that scenario and believe Borthwick’s side remain well placed to challenge at next year’s World Cup.
That comes despite enduring their worst Six Nations campaign that featured a first-ever defeat to Italy, and being heavily beaten 45-21 in their Nations Championship opener against South Africa in July.
Bill Sweeney, the RFU chief executive, suggested that Borthwick will remain in place regardless of results this autumn.
“We’re committed to Steve, we’ve extended his contract to the middle of 2028,” Sweeney said. “We believe in what he’s doing. We had a difficult Six Nations this year, we accept that, but we just want to see continued progress and we’re backing him to get that done.
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“It was a really thorough, in-depth review [of the Six Nations]. It happens after every competition; a mini-version happens after virtually every game. We were clearly very disappointed about the Six Nations this year. Nobody wanted to see that performance. It did highlight some areas that required action. They have been followed up on.
“We are confident that has had an effect. The game against South Africa, tough game to go and play in Ellis Park. The first 12 minutes were very difficult. I thought we responded very well in the Fiji game. Some people will say Fiji were off or weren’t particularly good, but at which point were they made not to look very good. The performance in Argentina was strong. We are looking forward to kicking on from that against Australia on Sunday.”
Among the areas of focus in the review was discipline, with England having been shown 14 yellow cards and suffered one sending off so far in 2026.
“I can’t remember the exact stats now but when we are down to 14 players, we are ranked eighth or ninth in the world,” Sweeney suggested. “When we’ve got all 15 on the field we are ranked second in the world. Clearly, discipline is a big issue. They’ve spent a lot of time and effort working on that. There were a couple of other factors that came up that we’ll keep to the review but they’ve been followed up on.”
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England resume their Nations Championship campaign against the Wallabies on Sunday, and also face Japan, New Zealand and an as-yet-undecided opponent on the finals weekend at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium.
Assistant coach Richard Wigglesworth has suggested that Fin Smith will be able to feature in their opener having come through training on Wednesday.
Fin Smith is primed to play against Australia (PA Archive)
“Fin trained today and got through all right so we are cautiously optimistic that he’s available for selection,” Wigglesworth said. “We’ll need to see what the next twenty-four hours are like in terms of his reaction but he did well today.”
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Back rower Ben Earl added of Smith: “Yeah, he looked good. Obviously, we know Fin, he’s a class, class player. He’s been in unbelievable form for a number of years.
“He deserves to be given the time to give himself the best chance to play. He looked very good today and I’m really looking forward to seeing him go.”
England were meanwhile visited by British sprint star Amy Hunt in camp on Wednesday. The 24-year-old won four gold medals at the European Championships earlier this year.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
