Category: Rugby

Head coach knows game management in later stages needs improvement against Australia after latest near miss

England’s team sheets are beginning to resemble Mastermind questions. They’ve started but can they finish? So many tight games have now been lost in the closing stages that the bench is becoming the first place to look for a glimpse of how a coach is thinking and how he might be looking to approach the next game.

Steve Borthwick had to been seen to do something after Saturday’s near-miss against New Zealand and, sure enough, other than switching the jersey numbers of his two centres, the only personnel tweaks are among the replacements. Gone, for now, is the 6-2 bench split, to be replaced by a more familiar 5-3 configuration, which now includes Luke Cowan-Dickie and Ollie Sleightholme.

• Danny Care accused Jones regime of being ‘a dictatorship’
• Borthwick hails ‘step forward’ in players sharing opinions

Steve Borthwick has insisted he has nothing to hide about his England setup and believes his players are empowered to speak up after claims from Danny Care that Eddie Jones’s regime was like “living in a dictatorship”.

Borthwick spent more than four years as Jones’s assistant but sought to distance his environment from that of the Australian’s after the former England scrum-half’s portrayal of a toxic culture raised serious questions over the Rugby Football Union’s safeguarding procedures. The World Cup winning coach Sir Clive Woodward has described it as “astonishing” that Jones’s contract was renewed by the RFU.

• Slade and Lawrence swap places in midfield jerseys
• Sleightholme and Cowan-Dickie added to bench

Steve Borthwick has stuck by his starting England team to face Australia on Saturday but freshened up his bench in an effort to avoid another late collapse following last weekend’s agonising defeat by New Zealand.

Borthwick’s only change to his starting XV is to swap Henry Slade and Ollie Lawrence around in midfield, moving the Exeter Chief to inside centre and handing the Bath man the No13 jersey.

The former England scrum-half’s depiction of the Australian’s ‘dictatorship’ raises serious questions for RFU

It has taken a while to trickle out but the full and frank verdict of the players is finally in. “It was like living in a dictatorship,” writes Danny Care in his new autobiography, Everything Happens for a Reason, serialised in the Sunday Times. “Remember what it felt like when someone was being bullied at school and you were just glad it wasn’t you? That was the vibe.”

The England regime to which he was referring – shock, horror – was that of Eddie Jones. According to Care, Jones’s players felt “like characters in a dystopian novel” at times. “Everything’s a test,” they would whisper to each other, trying to steel themselves for whatever was about to follow. “Did Eddie rule by fear?” asks Care rhetorically, at one point. “Of course he did, everyone was bloody terrified of him.”

Leicester prop was first to find out about Marler’s retirement and is backing Borthwick after loss to All Blacks

As his close confidant and the first person to find out, Dan Cole was not entirely surprised when Joe Marler told him of his international retirement. Indeed Marler’s decision provoked an altogether different reaction. “He explained his reasons and all that, and I thought: ‘Who the fuck am I going to room with, Joe!? You’ve stitched me up here!’”

It turns out George Ford is the lucky recipient of Marler’s bed but more significantly, it is Sale’s 20-year-old prop Asher Opoku-Fordjour who takes his place in the squad. As Cole says, he will miss Marler, but the world keeps turning. He questions whether, at 37, he still belongs at the highest level almost on a daily basis and Steve Borthwick’s decision to hand the highly-rated Opoku-Fordjour a first call-up is symbolic of the changing of the guard.

After losing another game they should have won, England need fresh impetus if they are to avoid a dismal autumn

Let’s kick off with some good news. The Twickenham experience has been a slightly variable one in recent years but the vibe inside the now-retitled stadium on Saturday was a considerable improvement. A deep rumbling bass shook the concrete stands, adding to the thunderous feel of the whole occasion. And broadcasting the referee’s musings over the public address – why has that taken so long? – was unquestionably a welcome development, too.

The positives do not stop there. What a dramatic endgame it was. And how skilfully New Zealand prised open the coffin lid having seemed all but dead and buried. If the match-turning try by Mark Tele’a with four minutes left was a stunning intervention, what about the towering touchline conversion from Damian McKenzie which ended up separating the two teams? How good was Wallace Sititi? This was not a match defined wholly by missed opportunities.

• Prop calls time on England career after 95 caps
• ‘I don’t want to leave my house with my kids crying’

Joe Marler has retired from international rugby and will play no part in the rest of England’s autumn nations campaign, citing the need to prioritise his family saying: “I can’t do what I used to do as well as I once could”.

As exclusively revealed by the Guardian, Marler left the England camp at the start of last week, citing personal reasons, and made himself unavailable for Saturday’s agonising defeat by the All Blacks. It is understood the prop arrived in camp last Sunday but informed Steve Borthwick and a group of senior players of his decision and returned to his family home. While he was keen to stress that he was taking a “day-by-day” approach last week, the writing was on the wall and he brings the curtain down on his England career with 95 caps.