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Rome is ready and waiting. The back of its open-top buses display images of Italian rugby players, battle ready, staring down at you like gladiators. Standing 15ft tall, the likes of Michele Lamaro, Monty Ioane and Tommaso Menoncello look as if they are ready to take off somebody’s head.
The hop-on, hop-off transport eventually leads you to the Colosseum. Nowadays, the old amphitheatre is overrun with novelty trinkets and soldiers holding fake swords but this ancient city has a history of merciless killings.
In certain quarters, there are calls for an early end to Steve Borthwick’s tenure. But even if England join Rome’s list of victims this weekend, do not expect to see the coach’s head carried out on a trident. Borthwick is going nowhere soon.
Firstly, England should not lose. They have never been beaten by Italy and they have locked down over the last fortnight to focus on their accuracy, physicality and confrontation. The sort of qualities you need to take on the blood-thirsty mob. Their defence coach, Richard Wigglesworth, revealed they have ‘blown the lid off’ in training.
England’s spirit has been questioned after defeats by Scotland and Ireland but their squad stands behind Borthwick as coach. There are no signs of the Machiavellian player revolt that forced out All Blacks coach Scott Robertson just two years into his tenure.
‘Change would be the worst idea anyone’s ever had,’ said vice-captain Jamie George.
There have been calls for Steve Borthwick to be sacked following England’s disappointing Six Nations campaign… but don’t expect him to go anytime soon
England suffered a chastening defeat by Ireland at Twickenham last time out but their record against Italy should give them cause for optimism this weekend
For starters, there would be no obvious successor. England won 12 games in a row from last summer through to last month, so there has been no scheming in corridors to look for replacements. Andy Farrell is the leading candidate to become the next England coach but he remains under contract with Ireland.
The Stadio Olimpico is sold out for this game but Rome is a football city. The souvenir shops sell retro Francesco Totti jerseys alongside the Marcus Aurelius fridge magnets. In Serie A, the likes of Alberto Gilardino, Patrick Vieira and Igor Tudor have all been sacked from managerial positions this season but rugby does not have the same hiring and firing culture.
‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ Ian Holloway, who has managed more than 1,000 games of professional football, tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘We had quite a stable football environment a few years ago. You had Arsenal who had a manager for 22 years. You had Manchester United who had a manager for 27 years.
‘Now everybody undermines their manager left, right and centre and it’s the modern way in football. It’s like instant coffee. We used to grind it and put it on the stove and boil it and it was worth the effort. You’ve got owners who do what they want. I hope rugby doesn’t go the same way.
‘We shared a training ground with Wasps when I was at QPR. Shaun Edwards was completely insane. He would butter his bread rolls with his finger! You’ve got to be given time to ride out the storm if you want to create legacies like Fergie or Warren Gatland did back then.’
Eddie Jones flirted with danger during his reign as England coach yet he remained in the position for seven years. Do not expect the Borthwick era to fall within the space of a few weeks. ‘Rugby’s far less reactionary than football,’ Jones tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘It’s not like Nottingham Forest who have had four managers in half a season.
‘Rugby’s a complex game. It probably takes three years to build an international team. In football you can bring Lionel Messi into your team into a week and he’ll change things. In rugby, you could bring in Richie Mo’unga and he’s not going to be able to change the team if he’s not getting lineout or scrum ball.
‘Steve has proven himself to be a very good coach at international level. I think this experience can almost be a blessing. They know how they want to play so they just need to settle on a nine and 10.
Borthwick takes England training at Pennyhill Park earlier this week – there has been no scheming in the RFU corridors of power around recruiting a replacement
‘Steve has proven himself to be a very good coach at international level,’ says his predecessor Eddie Jones. ‘This experience can almost be a blessing’
‘No one enjoys the noise and the criticism, but Steve will see it as a chance to realign and refocus the team towards the World Cup. Even if they lose in Rome…. the noise will just be louder.’
The noise is already coming from all angles. Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus delivered a barbed compliment on Friday that Borthwick ‘thinks like a machine’ and told the English rugby public that they do not need to ‘jump out of their cars’ because South Africa have found themselves in the same position and turned things around.
‘The pressure builds pretty quickly,’ said the double World Cup-winning South African. ‘Especially when you’ve built up expectations from people. The emotional drop after that normally buggers up everything.’
If England need inspiration closer to home, they can look at their own reversal of fortunes in 2018. They finished fifth in the Six Nations and lost six games on the bounce but Jones stopped the rot and they reached the World Cup final the following year.
Turnarounds can be achieved quickly in sport and Jones ruthlessly refreshed his squad at the expense of the likes of Dylan Hartley, Chris Robshaw, James Haskell and Mike Brown.
‘Eddie let some guys go in 2018,’ recalls Haskell. ‘Dylan was struggling to get fit so he brought in Owen Farrell as co-captain. He played a few mind games. He got rid of guys like Mako and Billy Vunipola and Dan Cole to see who would stand up.
‘He came to my house, sat down on the sofa and said, “I don’t think you’ve got what it takes anymore, you’ve been a great servant to English rugby”. There were tears in his eyes but it was all a test.
‘Steve does things differently to Eddie. Eddie let go of some of the older guard but age isn’t an issue here. You have to adjust to what you’re doing and understand that you can’t win a game when every player is giving one or two turnovers.
Borthwick’s squad is full of young players making their way in international rugby. ‘Let’s see who stands up when they are really tested,’ says ex-England flanker James Haskell
Former All Black No 8 Hoskins Sotutu (pictured) is English qualified and joining Newcastle this summer – he could add his power to Borthwick’s back-row
‘There are a lot of younger guys in this squad who have tasted success and now we’ll see who stands up when they are really tested.’
Borthwick’s squad is not carrying many over-30s but there is a tranche of players who could come in for the World Cup. Former All Black No 8 Hoskins Sotutu is English qualified and joining Newcastle this summer and can add his power to the back row, while Bristol‘s punchy South African centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg also becomes eligible before the autumn.
Athletic centre Joe Marchant will return from Paris next season, while the likes of Will Stuart, Manny Feyi-Waboso and George Martin can boost his stocks when they return to fitness.
Nine players have been chopped from England’s starting XV following the defeat by Ireland, with the likes of Seb Atkinson and Fin Smith given the chance to carry the team forward. Among other things, Wigglesworth praised Atkinson’s aggression at the ruck as England look to reverse their trend of cheap turnovers in the midfield.
Smith has been brought in at No 10 to improve the team’s strike rate in the 22. England have been blunt in the red zone and Smith’s fluid passing needs to convert their high-phase plays into points.
Ben Spencer’s scrum-half selection suggests they will double down on the contestable kicks that worked so well in the autumn series. Do not expect to see the emperor wearing new clothes at the Stadio Olimpico.
‘England have been playing rugby for 150-odd years and how many great attacking periods have they had? Not a lot, mate,’ adds Jones.
‘Towards the end of that Clive Woodward period in 2003 they started to play some great rugby, and that all ended quickly. We had a period in 2019 when we played really good attacking rugby, but that ended quickly.
Ben Spencer’s scrum-half selection in Rome suggests England will double down on the contestable kicks that worked so well in the autumn series
‘George Ford was setting the world on fire… now he hasn’t been at his best so the performance of the team drops’
‘There’s a psyche of every team where there’s a natural style that suits the players. While the fans always want exciting rugby, to win you have to play to your strengths. With England that’s playing a more balanced solid game and being able to attack off the back of that.
‘They’ve been through a good period and have got beaten badly in the last couple of games. Everyone understands that. It only takes one or two of the senior players to be off.
‘Maro Itoje hasn’t been at his best, that’s clear, and there are reasons beyond rugby for that. George Ford was setting the world on fire and hasn’t been at his best so the performance of the team drops. They can pick that up quickly.’
As Holloway says, Rome was not built in a day but patience in English rugby has quickly worn thin. They need to start fast and quickly return to winning ways to ensure there is no more damage to the Borthwick empire.