Steve Borthwick new England coach

England head coach Steve Borthwick.

England boss lays blame for team’s Six Nations woes at Eddie Jones’ door

Steve Borthwick says England team he inherited from Eddie Jones ‘weren’t good at anything’, in the wake of his opening defeat at Twickenham.

Steve Borthwick new England coach

England head coach Steve Borthwick.

Steve Borthwick says the England team he inherited from Eddie Jones ‘weren’t good at anything’, in the wake of his opening game defeat at Twickenham.

ALSO READ: Netflix announces Six Nations behind-the-scenes documentary

England slumped to an unceremonious 29-23 loss to Scotland, whose South African-born winger Dugan van der Merwe bagged two stunning tries in his team’s victory.

Commenting on the result, Borthwick made a scathing assessment of the England side he inherited from Eddie Jones after making a losing start to his tenure against Scotland, insisting they “weren’t good at anything”.

“I’ve been frank from day one in saying there’s a lot of work to do,” Borthwick said. “When I looked at the team in the autumn, when I measured the team and got all the data for the team, we weren’t good at anything. It was as frank as that.”

“We are trying to build some strengths in this team and some bits we are pleased about and some bits we are disappointed about. My job is to make sure we get some improvements,” Borthwick explained.

“There are multiple areas we have tried to change. You saw some improvement in the scrum against Scotland which I was pleased about because it has been ranked as the worst scrum in tier-one (leading nations) rugby,” added the England coach.

“We saw some improvements in the attack and speed of ball and we tried to improve the breakdown where England were ranked the ninth quickest, so one of the slowest in tier one.”

ALSO READ: Six Nations recap (round 1) — France, Scotland, Ireland slay; Italy, England, Wales slayed

Borthwick added that he accepts his side remain a work in progress seven months out from the start of the World Cup.

England’s next opponents in this year’s Six Nations are Italy, suffered an agonising 29-24 loss to Grand Slam champions France in the opening round.

Six Nations log: England in fifth place

England position on Six Nations log. Borthwick team.
Six Nations standings.