Steve Borthwick must throw off the shackles in Paris to inject some attacking energy into his far-too predictable side
T
he inquest into England’s Six Nations campaign has already started and when that is the case before the championship has even finished it is never a good sign. Everyone has their own opinions on what is wrong and I’m sure that is the same within the squad too. When you are on runs like England are, different players come up with different reasons for their problems and different fixes – and that makes the situation all the more difficult.
If there is one thing holding England back it is their gameplan. I don’t say that as a reaction to these three defeats, I felt that they stagnated during the autumn and tightened things up despite chalking up four victories. The best illustration I can give is the 2024 tournament. England had lost to Scotland, went to York in the fallow week, contrived to throw off the shackles in attack and it paid immediate dividends.
There was an energy to England back then, as demonstrated when Marcus Smith kicked the winning drop goal against Ireland and in the narrow defeat against France in Lyon the following week. It wasn’t only physical energy, it was energy in their expression. I remember at the time saying that if that was the baseline for this England team then the supporters have something that they can truly care about. Expression and invention are two traits that supporters will always invest in and get behind.
