We’re just talking about now – Steve Borthwick ignoring Leicester records talk

Leicester boss Steve Borthwick will not be distracted by talk of records as Tigers’ unbeaten start to the season potentially approaches new territory.

Borthwick’s team head to Coventry on Sunday for a Gallagher Premiership appointment with neighbours Wasps.

Victory would make it 12 successive Premiership wins this term, and 16 in all competitions. Their last defeat was against Bristol on June 5.

A 16th triumph on the bounce would equal Leicester’s all-time best run that they set at the start of the 1983-84 season, while also matching Newcastle’s Premiership record that saw them win their first 12 league games of the 1997-98 campaign.

Borthwick, though, remains fully concentrated on the task at hand as he continues to oversee an impressive run.

“I don’t take the players beyond the very next game,” he said. “That’s the approach we have taken since the day I walked in to Leicester Tigers.

“We are not talking about any number of wins that have gone before, and we are not talking about potential permutations in the future. We are just talking about now.

“For me, that is a much simpler way of looking at it. The level of competition in the Premiership is that any team can beat any team.

“If you take your eye off for a moment, you live in the past for a little bit too long or you live too far in the future for a little bit too long, if you do either of those things then you are going to get beaten because of the standard of the opponents.

“I am pretty clear about how we want to play, pretty clear about the direction we need to go and how we need to train to get there, and pretty clear about what we need to do in reshaping the squad.”

Leicester have absorbed every challenge faced by them this season, and they will tackle Wasps with a healthy lead at the Premiership summit.

Borthwick, meanwhile, has also stressed the importance of adaptability, particularly amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“The situation is always changing,” he added. “That is what I have found this last year and a half.

“You select a team, you train a team and you have got to adapt in the week. That adaptability is important.

“I think every squad is affected by Covid right now in the sense of the way you have to conduct yourself, the way you have to do meetings, the way you have your training programme set out.

“It’s not the way you would do it normally, but it’s the way you have got to do it now to minimise any risk. It is a challenging time for everybody.

“We will do all we can in every game to make sure we can field a team. If that means we play players out of position, as long as the safety issues are fine, then that’s what we will do.

“We want to play the games in front of our fans, we want the contests, so whatever is thrown at us, we just have to get on with it.”