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3 hours ago
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The haunted look writ large across the face of Maro Itoje said it all. England had burst into the Italy half, deep into the 80th minute, and Ollie Chessum was on the gallop, desperately trying to salvage something from the wreckage. Closer and closer they got before the shrill of the referee’s whistle confirmed England’s worst nightmare. Italy were about to put the seal on a first ever win in the fixture in 33 attempts and it was dawning on Itoje that he was powerless to stop it.
The final whistle blew and England players were, to a man, stunned. Shellshocked. Marcus Smith was on his haunches, Chandler Cunningham-South staring into the abyss. The camera panned to Tom Curry, ruled out after an injury in the warm-up, as he slumped on the bench wearing a look of despair. England in ruins. The empire that Steve Borthwick had built reduced to rubble. When responses to defeat are promised and repeatedly fail to materialise, the logical next step is regime change.
Make no mistake, this is now a full-blown crisis for England. It was a humiliating loss at the hands of opponents who had never previously beaten them, who didn’t have to play spectacularly well, but who seized their opportunity when ill discipline reared its head in the England ranks once more. First Sam Underhill saw yellow, then Itoje. It was the captain’s second yellow card of the tournament and it gave Italy a belief that they could come from behind and secure this famous victory. England down to 13 men again. Leadership is by far the only problem for England but it is a critical one.
It is now three defeats in a row, each more soul-destroying than the last. Borthwick is under enormous pressure, fighting for his job, with a trip to Paris to come next week against a France side who will be gunning for the title and eager to make amends for slipping up at Murrayfield. His decision to make 12 changes to his side backfired and his inability to get a different tune out of a largely different set of players does not paint him in a good light. It will be an uncomfortable post-Six Nations review he conducts and Bill Sweeney, the Rugby Football Union chief executive, will know only too well that leaving it until the autumn, as was the case four years ago when he decided to end Eddie Jones’s tenure, is too late.
Borthwick had lamented a number of issues in the two weeks since the Ireland match. Physical intensity, a costly amount of turnovers, a failure to take chances and discipline being chief among them. Jamie George had bemoaned that England had gone away from their identity, their character. That there was not enough spirit, fight, hard work and graft. England did not want for graft but supporters have a right to expect so much more from this side and not one of their fundamental flaws was rectified.
They came with a plan to kick the leather off the ball, to pin Italy back in their own 22, but they enjoyed a great deal of possession and did very little of note with it. Their two tries were well fashioned, Tommy Freeman finishing off a well-worked passage of play on the left before Fin Smith identified the space on the right and measured his kick to Tom Roebuck perfectly. But their error count was again disastrous.
Before the rot started, Itoje had talked of England being bullet-proof, but they are now unable to stop shooting themselves in the foot. Few players emerge in credit, though Ben Earl – winning his 50th cap – is one of them. He gets through so much work that you wonder where England would be without him, but a stack of players failed to take the opportunity they were given. Fin Smith made a couple of eye-catching mistakes but his inability to manage England through the second half is the most pressing problem.
For it was notable that there were audible groans when he kicked waywardly just before the hour mark, handing possession back to Italy. This is not an easy England team to love and Borthwick does not seem to realise that doubling down on a kicking game is not the way to win supporters over. Perhaps more critically, he does not seem that bothered. They came to Rome in their droves, thronged in the piazzas, spilled out of the trattorias, but increasingly watching England is becoming an inconvenient part of their long weekends.
Those groans should concern Borthwick because if they turn to boos, he will be in further trouble. It was jeering that came to mark the end of Jones’s tenure and Sweeney will be taking note. When England were on their 12-match winning run, supporters lapped up the sustained success, but they were not in thrall to this side and that, in turn, makes it more likely that the daggers will be out now.
It may help Borthwick that there are not obvious candidates to take over before the summer Tests against South Africa, Fiji and Argentina, but he overhauled his side on the basis that he could not reward mediocrity. When the bones are picked out of this disastrous defeat, this shocking campaign, he must be held to the same standards.
