England players not fit enough at start of campaign, claims Steve Borthwick

England head coach Steve Borthwick has claimed that his players were not fit enough coming into the Autumn Nation Series despite the Rugby Football Union spending £264 million to give him greater control of their conditioning.

After a 29-20 defeat to South Africa extended England’s losing run to five games, Borthwick made the pointed comment that the condition of the players “wasn’t quite where it needed to be” at the start of the autumn campaign having spent the start of the season with their club sides.

In spite of winning just four of 11 matches this year, the RFU continues to give Borthwick its full backing while full-back Freddie Steward says the players “almost let him down” against South Africa on Saturday. An anonymous review process will take place following the conclusion of England’s autumn campaign against Japan on Sunday.

According to a report in The Times, Borthwick, RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney and Conor O’Shea, the executive director of performance rugby, will miss out on six-figure bonuses because of England’s dire run of results.

Coming into the autumn campaign, the RFU announced 17 players had received enhanced contracts which were the centrepiece of the eight-year Professional Game Partnership with Premiership Rugby. This was supposed to give Borthwick more input into their conditioning as well as “final say” over medical decisions.

However, England’s strength and conditioning department has been in turmoil since Aled Walters defected to Ireland and Tom Tombleson was released from his role. Dan Tobin has arrived from Gloucester, however Saracens’ Phil Morrow, Borthwick’s preferred choice to take over from Walters, was blocked from taking up a job-share role by other Premiership clubs.

England have failed to score a point in the last 20 minutes in four of their past five defeats and Borthwick indicated that he did not consider his players ready to go toe to toe with the leading lights of the southern hemisphere.

“Clearly we have played against a series of very good teams that have come off the back of the Rugby Championship, so they are Test-match hardened,” Borthwick said. “At the start of this series, you looked at the condition of the players and it wasn’t quite where it needed to be for Test-match rugby, for teams stepping straight into Test-match rugby.”

The last time that England were on such a losing run was in 2018 when Borthwick was an assistant under head coach Eddie Jones whose job was saved by a victory in the third Test of a series against South Africa. Borthwick says he has recently exchanged WhatsApp messages with Jones, now the head coach of Japan who are next up for England on Sunday.

Borthwick anticipates making several changes against the opposition whom they thrashed 52-17 in Tokyo in June. Flanker Tom Curry and winger Immanuel Feyi-Waboso should both be available after missing the South Africa defeat following concussions while Borthwick attended England A’s 38-17 victory against their Australian counterparts with Sale Sharks prop Asher Opoku-Fordjour of particular interest.

Borthwick wants England to deliver a performance a “level above” where they have currently been and wants his squad to keep the pressure on Japan. “I’m probably one of the most impatient people you would meet,” Borthwick said. “I also understand that there’s a journey that we’re on, a transition we’re on.

“I’m very clear about how I wish the team to play. You’ve seen we have got speed on the edges and we want the ball in those players’ hands. That is a constant encouragement for me, for the players to keep playing big, for the players to move the ball. If anything, there were a couple of moments at the end of the game where I thought we could have moved the ball more.”

Borthwick continues to receive the players’ backing with full-back Steward saying the squad need to take ownership for their mistakes. “We almost let him down,” said Steward. “I don’t think the fault should go to him at all. As players we had a game plan that put us in position to win that game [against South Africa]. We’ve got to look at ourselves as to why we didn’t pull away at the end and go back ahead.”

That message was echoed by second row Maro Itoje who admitted his mistake in committing a costly neck roll penalty that resulted in a disallowed try. “As players, we need to be better,” Itoje said. “I feel like our plan is right and the coaches are setting us up well. But as players, we need to do our part and finish the job.”