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Four big calls Borthwick could make to revive England
Four big calls Borthwick could make to revive England
After head coach Steve Borthwick revamped his England team to face Italy and found that their losing streak stubbornly rolled on regardless, he faces a difficult selection for the Six Nations finale against France.
Does he keep faith with a new-look side who showed a moderate improvement on the defeats by Scotland and Ireland?
Does he return to more established names and combinations in the hope that the sting of being dropped spurs them on to a better performance in Paris on Saturday?
Or something radical once more?
There are still options unexplored in the search for a way to shock England back to form.
Here are four.
After starting eight successive matches as England's 10 between summer 2024 and the second round of last year's Six Nations, Marcus Smith has not had another sniff of the shirt.
The 27-year-old, who has been clear in his preference for playing at fly-half, has uncomplainingly got on with being redeployed as a full-back or a utility bench option since.
It is easy to forget how prolific he was in creating or assisting tries when he was steering England's attack.
He claimed seven try assists in 2024 and was directly involved in 13% of England's total tries. By that metric, only Australia's Tom Wright was more central to a Six Nations or Rugby Championships team's scoring.
Smith's running ability is clear, but he is an underrated kicker out of hand, finding his wings with well-weighted bombs, and a brave tackler.
There are doubts about his ability to balance his natural flair with game management, but a shrewd display in Harlequins' win over Saracens in October showed he can strike it right.
He benefits from having a hard-running physical centre outside him as a primary option. His combination with Andre Esterhuizen was key to Harlequins' run to the Premiership title in 2021.
Seb Atkinson could work as a fine foil at 12 for England.
Harlequins' miserable form this season has not helped Smith's case, but he has happy memories of being parachuted in against France.
On England's most recent visit over the Channel, Smith replaced George Furbank after only seven minutes and jinked over for a fine score in a 33-31 defeat.
Up front for England, there was an imbalance in the ball-carrying duties in Saturday's defeat by Italy.
Ben Earl contributed 20 carries. Jamie George managed 10. No-one else in the pack got into double figures.
With Tom Willis - Earl and George's Saracens team-mate and the Prem's most consistent and destructive ball-carrier - exiled from the England scene in light of his impending move to Bordeaux-Begles, perhaps it was a foreseeable problem.
While Borthwick has generally been wedded to speed and breakdown smarts in his back row, there is the option of adding some bosh.
Ollie Chessum and Chandler Cunningham-South are heavy-duty operators, with the advantage of also being third line-out outlet.
If they took on some of the ball-carrying burden, could it allow Earl to drift into dangerous wider areas where his pace and power can create mismatches?
France's pack certainly contains a wider arsenal of high-class carriers. Like Cunningham-South and Chessum, their second-row pairing of Charles Ollivon and Mickael Guillard have the athleticism and explosiveness to play in the back row on occasion.
England have the personnel to follow suit.
After playing every minute of 30 consecutive England Six Nations matches from the start of 2020, Maro Itoje has been a less consistent presence in the line-up this year.
He was late to a pre-tournament training camp after returning to Nigeria for his mother's funeral, and started the opening-round win over Wales on the bench.
He was withdrawn early from the defeats by Scotland and Ireland and was absent for part of the decisive final quarter against Italy after picking up his second yellow card of the tournament.
Missing minutes are not usually Itoje's style. He has played more than 30 games in each of the past two seasons, breaching the recommended limit of 2,400 match minutes per season in 2023-24 and narrowly avoiding doing so in 2024-25.
Itoje has said that such a workload is probably not sustainable, external in the long term.
With Itoje short of his best form, England's title hopes gone already and fellow second row Alex Coles' development one of the few plus points for England, an enforced week off could be good for the 31-year-old.
It could also be good for the team.
Courtney Lawes was ushered in as a stand-in captain after an injury to regular skipper Owen Farrell in 2021 and duly oversaw a victory over South Africa that November and a series win against Australia the following summer.
Memorably praised as "the people's captain" by Joe Marler, a temporary change of voice seemed to lift the team.
England's only win of the Six Nations came as George resumed starting skipper duties against Wales.
Earl or Ellis Genge might also relish the role.
Given concerns over on-pitch leadership - with Itoje in the sin-bin - prompted Borthwick to delay his replacements against Italy, strengthening and empowering other senior figures would seem to be part of a busy in-tray for Borthwick.
Harder than bringing in or leaving out any player is to replace an entire plan.
"Lee has been widely regarded as one of the country's top attack coaches," said Borthwick in September as he welcomed attack coach Lee Blackett on board full-time.
His teams play fast, exciting rugby that consistently look to score tries.
Blackett impressed in a temporary stint on the summer tour of Argentina. England scored seven tries across their two Test victories over the Pumas.
In his final season with Bath he coaxed 96 regular-season tries out of the eventual Premiership champions - the most any team had scored in the three seasons since the league contracted with the loss of Wasps, Worcester and London Irish.
Blackett was also inheriting an England side that had enjoyed a stellar 2025 Six Nations campaign, racking up 25 tries - the most they have managed in almost a quarter of a century - under the guidance of Richard Wigglesworth.
Somewhere along the line, though, England have misplaced their cutting edge.
They have 14 tries and a clutch of wasted opportunities and platforms to show from this season's competition.
Once again against Italy - as in their defeats by Scotland and Ireland - they averaged less than two points per 22m entry. That figure is substantially below par for any team with serious title aspirations.
The players have insisted they are happy with the tactics they are being asked to play, but Blackett and Wigglesworth are an excellent brains trust for Borthwick to consult if he decides to reshape the gameplan.
While tactics based around the aerial contest, territory and minimising risk have been a feature of Borthwick's teams since he took charge of Leicester in his first head coach role in 2020, he has shown flexibility on defence.
The ultra-aggressive blitz that former defence coach Felix Jones implemented in 2024 has been tempered, with cohesion now valued over line speed.
A shift in attack, which brings England's undoubted talent to bear and leaves them less dependent on the bounce of a tapped-back ball, could be timely.
Source: BBC
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