Today's rugby news as Warren Gatland highly unlikely to repeat decision that left Wales vulnerable

Here are the latest rugby headlines on Monday, November 11.

Gatland won't repeat risky strategy

Warren Gatland admits he is unlikely to repeat the decision to opt for a 6:2 bench split that left Wales vulnerable.

The Wales coach made the bold move to have only half-backs Ellis Bevan and Sam Costelow on the bench as back cover against Fiji - a move that seemed perhaps unnecessarily risky with two outside-half options in Gareth Anscombe and Ben Thomas already starting.

READ MORE:Dan Biggar: It cannot carry on like this, serious questions must be asked of Gatland

READ MORE:The unheard Wales v Fiji moments as Welsh voices silenced amid all the problems

Such is Wales' predicament right now, winger Mason Grady went down injured after 17 minutes, leaving the team exposed and disjointed as Costelow came on out on the wing. The situation was compounded by Gatland's revelation the plan was actually to bring Bevan on, but a miscommunication with staff in the technical area resulted in Costelow taking the field. You can read about that here.

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Asked if will now be discouraged to opt for the 6:2 split in future, he said: "Probably. We were going to get a bit of bad luck and it happened today. Probably the wrong player has gone on as a replacement. We talked about Ellis Bevan going on there.

"That was something we had to deal with. It’s difficult. We had a long debate about that and long discussion about the six-two split. The first time you do that and you get caught in the one position you’re a bit vulnerable."

Asked if Wales will hold honest conversations about the performance over the next 24 hours, Gatland added: "Absolutely. One thing about this group is they are pretty honest with themselves. They’ll put their hand up and look at moments where they could have been a bit more accurate or potentially worked a bit harder. There’ll be times where they needed to fix up things defensively. At half-time, we showed players where our kick chase could have been a bit better.

"We’ve just stopped a little bit and allowed them to have a crack at us, rather than being much more aggressive in shutting the space down. Those are fixes for us that we’ll be able to rectify. The players are pretty aware of that. They’ll look at their own performance and where they could have been better, as well as how we could have been collectively better."

The Wales v Fiji inquest podcast

Borthwick job safe despite latest defeat

By Duncan Bech, PA England Rugby Correspondent

England head coach Steve Borthwick has the backing of the Rugby Football Union in response to Autumn Nations Series losses to New Zealand and Australia.

The Wallabies’ 42-37 victory at Allianz Stadium on Saturday inflicted a fourth successive defeat on England and their fifth in six games, albeit three of them were to the All Blacks.

They have lost half of their 26 matches under Borthwick, whose 50 per cent win ratio since replacing Eddie Jones at the end of 2022 means only Andy Robinson has a lower success rate in the professional era.

However, the PA news agency understands the 45-year-old has the full support of the RFU, which sees the current campaign as very different to the 2022 autumn that resulted in Jones being sacked.

Jones’ seven years in charge were brought to an end after his side had lost to Argentina, drawn with New Zealand and been routed by South Africa.

A disappointing series continued a trend of ongoing decline under the Australian, whose record in 2022 was England’s worst since 2008, comprising of six defeats, a draw and five wins.

He also presided over three Six Nations that produced three losses, resulting in two fifth-placed finishes.

The RFU believes that England are on a different trajectory under Borthwick, with the setbacks against New Zealand and Australia both narrow defeats that could have gone either way.

Townsend proud of Scots

By Anthony Brown, PA

Gregor Townsend felt Scotland produced one of their best performances of recent years as they threatened an upset against world champions South Africa before succumbing to a 32-15 defeat at Murrayfield.

The Scots were 19-9 down at the break following two tries from Makazole Mapimpi and one from Thomas du Toit after Scott Cummings was shown a 20-minute red card for a dangerous clear-out of a ruck.

But they rallied impressively after the break and got back to within four points at a time when the Boks were down to 14 men following a yellow card for Mapimpi just before the hour.

Scotland’s failure to add a try to Finn Russell’s five penalties proved costly, however, as South Africa pulled away in the closing stages, with a late try from Jasper Wiese putting gloss on the scoreline.

“I thought it was one of our best performances of the last few seasons,” said Townsend, who felt Cummings’ red was “very harsh”.

“A performance like that, to go up against the world champions, you’ve got to bring your own physicality and match their physicality.

“You’ve got to work as hard as you’ve ever worked and I felt our players did that. When you consider that we were down a man for 20 minutes, and that player being a second row, it takes a huge effort to get through that. And the effort was there in the second half.

“When the game was opening up, we looked at times the fitter team and it looked like we were sharper. So there’s a huge amount of pride, not just pride, but pleasing aspects of the performance.

“There was some skill execution that we have to improve, but I also felt we had a bit of bad luck. We stole a lineout in our 22 and the ball bobbles into their hands (for Du Toit) and they score seven points when they hadn’t had much pressure.

“The question about not scoring tries, that’s a valid one, but I felt we had enough pressure and positions to score more points so we’ll look at how we can improve that.”

Woodward calls out England

Sir Clive Woodward has criticised England's decision-making in 'tiny but crucial moments' after their disappointing loss to Australia on Saturday. Steve Borthwick's squad suffered their second straight defeat in the Autumn International Series, despite having a 12-point lead early in the first half.

Similar to the previous weekend against New Zealand, weaknesses in England's defence proved costly, with Max Jorgensen scoring a late try that sealed the game for Australia in the 84th minute. Beyond the defeat itself, Woodward has condemned England for conceding 42 points at home, attributing it to errors at pivotal times.

In his Daily Mail column, Woodward remarked: "As a team, England are getting these tiny yet crucial moments wrong and it's costing them."

He also noted Borthwick's candid post-match comments, saying: "I was pleased to hear Borthwick as head coach front up honestly. I might be mistaken, but I think it's the first time he has spoken in such a way in his time in charge of the team."

After the match, Borthwick didn't mince words, expressing his disappointment: "Everyone is gutted. It's a game we should have won. Multiple times we put ourselves in the position to win the game and we didn't.", reports the Express.

However, Woodward insists that England should move beyond excuses and is calling for Borthwick to deliver a strong performance in the upcoming Autumn Internationals.

He remarked: "England losing key moments, like the restart with the clock virtually in the red on Saturday, is happening far too often and that's why they're losing matches."

"Borthwick is now going to come under a lot of pressure. That is the lot of an international head coach. You are defined by your results and England are losing too often right now."

"So, it is inevitable that there will be heat on Borthwick. There must be a response."