International Rugby

[Gareth]

Should be the end for Borthwick but it won't be

Unfortunately correct, the guy is desperately poor and him being in charge guarantees England won’t win the WC. Ford is not, never has been and never will be the answer - like Ben Youngs was before him he is 40 caps heavy because he is coaches favourite

[paul_e]

Should be the end for Borthwick but it won't be

Unfortunately correct, the guy is desperately poor and him being in charge guarantees England won’t win the WC. Ford is not, never has been and never will be the answer - like Ben Youngs was before him he is 40 caps heavy because he is coaches favourite

Yep, coaches think him doing exactly what he's told is a strength but the reality is you get entirely too many performances like today where he's playing the game to a plan rather than reacting to what is happening.

The most frustrating thing is Smith and Smith had nailed down the 10 and 15 shirts then they went away with the lions and Borthwick seemed to forget they were his first choices and fell back into the pair that had been letting him down, it's just weird. He needs to get rid of the obsession with playing the percentages as well, kicking the ball away if you don't break the line after 2-3 phases is just playing into the hands of teams like Scotland, Ireland and France who are so dangerous in broken play, it's fucking weird that he can't see that.

I'm absolutely fine with not just hammering against a wall phase after phase but it'd be really nice for us to try something else before going to the boot. The main tactic of carrying in pods and dominating the collision is how coaches at the bottom tiers of the pyramid are taught to play because it's easy to instil into players who barely train. When you have top level international players in a weeks long training camp you really need to be adding a bit more than that, "run fast, hit hard, don't get isolated and kick on 3rd phase" cannot be the sum total of your tactics at this level, it's like being a uni lecturer and teaching the students their times tables.