England ended their Six Nations campaign with a dramatic 33-31 loss to France on Saturday, but they still made significant progress over the course of the championship.
It was not simply that they won three matches, including an impressive defeat of Ireland that denied the champions a Grand Slam, but the way they played — especially after three successive Six Nations where one of rugby’s most well-resourced countries had managed just two victories.
England finished third at last year’s World Cup in France, but that performance had as much to do with coach Steve Borthwick’s men benefitting from an absurdly lopsided draw that kept them away from the game’s leading powers before they suffered an agonising one-point loss to eventual champions South Africa in the semi-finals.
And the way they started the Six Nations, with narrow wins over Italy and Wales, did little to restore the faith of their supporters.
Then came a fourth straight defeat by Scotland, where England appeared to lose their composure after squandering a promising start in Edinburgh before losing 30-21.
Afterwards, Borthwick — a former England captain — said: “It’s probably the first time in a while that I’d seen the weight of the shirt feel heavy on the players.”
Some supporters were starting to lose patience with his repeated assertion that England were a “new side” in development, but Borthwick was vindicated by his team’s performances in the final two rounds of the tournament as they ran in seven tries in total against Ireland and France.
George Ford, with schoolfriend Owen Farrell having opted out of Test duty on mental health grounds, started to play with real authority at fly-half behind a pack where captain Jamie George, back-row forwards Ben Earl and Ollie Chessum, as well as lock George Martin, tore into Ireland at Twickenham.
Composure
Meanwhile, with scrum-half Alex Mitchell providing quick service, a youthful back-line featuring powerhouse centre Ollie Lawrence and full-back George Furbank — recalled by Borthwick in a bold move after he dropped Freddie Steward, renowned for his ability under the high ball — contributed to what was arguably England’s best performance since their 2019 World Cup semi-final win over New Zealand.
As encouraging for England as the skill they showed was the composure they displayed when, having fallen behind late in the game, they still managed to create a position that enabled Marcus Smith to land a last-ditch drop-goal for victory.
It was a similar story against France as England ran in four tries, with Lawrence going over twice as he crossed either side of half-time.
In a wildly fluctuating game, England were 13 points down at one stage and eight ahead at another before Thomas Ramos’ last-minute penalty, awarded following a no-arms tackle by Earl, sealed a win for France.
Unusually, it was errors from England’s line-out — a speciality for former lock Borthwick — that contributed to Saturday’s loss, while a recently-introduced blitz defence was always going to be a risk against a team with the counter-attacking threat of France.
Even so, England were moments away from victory, with Borthwick saying: “I’ve talked about the weight of the shirt in the past but with the kind of support we’re getting, the England shirt is starting to feel a bit lighter, it’s helping these players.”
He added: “I don’t think these guys are ever beaten and we weren’t beaten in this game, we just ran out of time…We’ve taken on two teams in the top four in the world and we’ve shown how we can compete with them.
“To be clear, we don’t just want to be competing, we want to win.”
