England: Steve Borthwick hailed for ‘unbelievable rugby brain’ as players ‘let down’ coach in Springboks defeat (original) (raw)

England star Freddie Steward believes the players “let down” under pressure head coach Steve Borthwick in Saturday’s defeat to the Springboks, and feels he set them out a winning game plan.

Speculation has begun to grow surrounding the England head coach’s future following a rotten run of five-straight defeats, but Steward feels the players still believe they are heading in the right direction.

“We let him down today”

Speaking to the media following England’s 29-20 defeat to the back-to-back world champions, the Leicester Tigers man said the “fault shouldn’t go” to Borthwick and opened up on how the players need to take responsibility for the latest narrow defeat.

“I think we let him (Steve Borthwick) down today, the fault shouldn’t go to him at all,” he said. “As players, we had a game plan that put us in a position to win that game, but we’ve got to look at ourselves as to why we didn’t pull away at the end and get back ahead.”

“There’s no doubting that (they are moving forward),” Steward continued. “Over the last couple of weeks, yes we haven’t got the results, but we’ve been close in all three – particularly today against the back-to-back world champions.

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“We believe in what we’re doing, but as players, we need to take some responsibility for the end and try and win that game.”

Steward was also quick to praise the under-pressure head coach and lauded his “unbelievable rugby brain”.

“He’s an unbelievable coach. He has an unbelievable rugby brain, he’s a great motivator and man-manager, and as players, we believe in everything he’s bringing to this team,” said the full-back.

“The fault today lies in our hands, we should have put ourselves in a position to win that game but again we didn’t see it out.”

“We have to look at ourselves”

This game will go down as yet another golden opportunity missed by England. They took the lead through Ollie Sleightholme after just three minutes and also found themselves 20-19 up with just 20 minutes left on the clock.

England also blew a golden chance to regain the lead late on, with Henry Slade’s try stricken off for a neck roll in the build-up.

“There are definitely opportunities out there, there were opportunities today that we didn’t take,” Steward said. “In Test match rugby you have to take them because they don’t come around that often.

“We have to look at ourselves and we’ll review those situations where we could have come away with more points next week.”

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Borthwick’s side also piled on the pressure for much of the final quarter, but costly errors gave the Springboks chances to escape, and eventually seal the win at Allianz Stadium.

Commenting on this, Steward said: “Potentially, we switched off at key moments. We miss a clearout, and then all that pressure that we created goes because they whack the ball down our end. It’s frustrating because it’s our own mistakes, it’s us as players which is the hardest thing to take.”

He also called for his side to make winning a habit again, and highlighted how that trait was the key to the Springboks “closing out the game against the odds”.

“Winning is a habit, and we need to bring that into our team,” he said. “When you do it a couple of times, it becomes a habit and you saw that today with them (the Springboks) with Handre Pollard coming on and having the ability to close the game out against the odds. I have no doubt we’ll find that.”

England now prepare for a make-or-break clash with Japan, as they look to avoid a November whitewash. This game also holds special significance too, with former boss Eddie Jones facing England for the first time since his departure in 2022.