Steve Borthwick downplayed suggestions from Eddie Jones that England were looking too far ahead coming into the Six Nations.
England are nursing the wounds of back-to-back defeats against Scotland at Murrayfield and Ireland at Twickenham, leaving them in a precarious position in the competition.
It prompted England coach Jones to refer back to Borthwick’s comments before the tournament, when he set his sights on a final-day title decider against France.
“On March 14 in Paris, we want to be in a position entering that game where we can achieve what we’re all aiming to achieve,” Borthwick said in January.
Speaking to the Rugby Unity podcast, Jones said: “I’ll go back to the start of the Six Nations. I thought Steve made some very uncharacteristic comments about a title‑decider against France, looking ahead. Steve is the most pragmatic and intelligent coach you could meet, but to look ahead for any team is fraught with danger.”
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Will Greenwood berated England’s performance against Ireland in the Six Nations after they fell to a 42-21 defeat.
Borthwick said on Wednesday he had not heard Jones’ comments.
“I think you know how much respect I have for Eddie Jones,” Borthwick told Sky Sports News. “Clearly, within the camp here, we’ve always been focused on the next game in front of us.”
England’s performance at the weekend drew strong criticism as they were beaten 42-21 by Ireland in front of their home crowd, leaving them staring at a crucial encounter with Italy at the Stadio Olimpico on March 7.
Another slow start saw them concede 22 points in the first 30 minutes, having found themselves down 17-0 after just 15 minutes against Scotland.
“Quite clearly we are all bitterly disappointed with the performance, the results on Saturday,” said Borthwick. “It’s not the level of performance we wanted to put in. Clearly, we’ve been debriefing this thoroughly and forthrightly to be clear on what we’re going to improve and focus our attention upon.
“I think that, certainly at the start of the game, we had a number of scoring opportunities in the opposition 22 that we did not take, and credit to the opposition for defending so well. We must be better.
“Test rugby, the chances you get, you have to take them. You have to be clinical in those opportunities. Secondly, we turned over too much ball and that puts our defence in a vulnerable position, defending from unstructured situations.”
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Sky Sports’ James Cole reports on England’s heavy loss to Ireland at Twickenham in the Six Nations
England’s defence have missed 53 tackles and allowed 73 points over the last two outings, Borthwick pointing to the impact of his side’s turnover problems.
Borthwick also underlined the need for greater intensity having been overrun by Andy Farrell’s Ireland.
“It’s more related to the number of balls we turned over,” Borthwick said of issues in defence. “If you turn over a ball in unstructured situations, you give teams like Ireland so much ball to attack from, they can be so clinical.
“One of the hallmarks of this team over the last 12 to 18 months has been the consistently high intensity with which the team operates. And I don’t think that intensity was quite at the level we wanted it to be. And that’s a sharp reminder that if you drop by one or two per cent at Test level, then you get exposed.”
It was confirmed on Wednesday that scrum-half Alex Mitchell has been ruled out for the remainder of England’s Six Nations campaign with a hamstring injury.
Jack van Poortvliet is expected to start at scrum-half against Italy, with Raffi Quirke called up as a replacement.
Henry Pollock was one of two England players sin-binned in the defeat as their discipline was poor again
“Unfortunately he’s going to be out for a number of weeks, which means he won’t feature for us in the remainder of this championship,” said Borthwick. “Ollie Lawrence isn’t in the squad for these couple of days, we’ve got him here in this training week.
“He had seen a specialist yesterday around his knee and had an injection. We’ll be clear of a picture of him later this week, but hopefully he’ll be back very soon.
“There’s also George Furbank who’s not with us, he’s with Northampton this week, so he will play the game for his club side this weekend. A number of players started the week at their clubs, training with us in the latter part of the week and will return to their clubs for game time this weekend.”
For England head coach Borthwick there is a lot to ponder after two damaging defeats
England had entered their game against Scotland riding a 12-match winning streak after opening their Six Nations campaign in victory over Wales. Borthwick vowed to deliver a response to their recent setbacks in Italy.
“Clearly there’s been a couple of moments early in games that we’ve not taken opportunities and the opposition have,” he said.
“And there’s been a couple of sin bins in first halves that have put the team under a lot of stress. And we’ve talked through those moments. There’ll be experiences for us that we make sure are positive in the long-term development of this team.
“It’s painful now, it’s painful for me and for all the players and all the England supporters. We’ll make sure that we are better next week in Rome.”
