Going down to 13 'hurt us badly' - Steve Borthwick on England defeat
A blip? A dip? A slip? None will do any longer.
Their 23-18 defeat in Rome showed England are going through something far more serious and deeper seated than that.
As England's players stood stark, separate and slumped - and Italy celebrated a first-ever win in the fixture - talk of a crisis, perhaps premature before, felt entirely apt.
On the back of three successive defeats, England are distant underdogs for their meeting against France next weekend. If those odds play out and they lose again, they will have lost four matches in a Six Nations campaign for the first time.
