England are jetting out to the Costa Brava this coming week but winter sun is only a small part of the package. While Steve Borthwick wants his players to spend some time relaxing away from their well-appointed training base of Girona, currently top of La Liga, he is also keen to ensure they are good and ready for the specific demands of a modern Six Nations Championship.
Borthwick, as he loves doing, has been digging into the stats and, before a ball is box-kicked, reckons he knows where the championship will be won and lost. Spoiler alert: it will not be all about flowing back play or individual wizardry. According to England’s head coach, the key areas will be the breakdown and the scrum, mirroring the knockout stages of the recent World Cup.
England are not due to meet their two strongest opponents, Ireland and France, until the final two rounds in March but Borthwick will still be prepping his squad for an immediate step change from their weekly Premiership diet. While the pace and standard of the domestic league may be rising, Test rugby remains another ball game entirely.
Part of the reason, in Borthwick’s view, is the way major tournaments are officiated. “The breakdown and the scrum are refereed differently in international rugby. When you start looking at the Six Nations there is no competition in world rugby that has a higher turnover rate at the breakdown.
“With English referees in the Premiership, the speed of ball is high and the players want the ball out of the breakdown. The area around the maul is also clean and is not heavily penalised. In Test rugby that’s different. That area is not as clean. You see so many good back-rowers in the Six Nations and that means the breakdown is a real contest. Look at the Irish, French and Scottish back-rows. They are top quality.”
As South Africa further underlined in the World Cup semi-final, the scrum also remains a different beast to anything that exists domestically. “As we found to our cost in the World Cup semi-final, the scrum is a contest. Teams having the opportunity to scrum for penalties is important. In the Premiership too many scrums are not getting to a contest. I like a scrum contest, I don’t want that leaving our game.”
It is another reason why Borthwick can foresee a series of tight Six Nations games, shaped at close quarters with defensive excellence also pivotal. “As soon as you go up the levels the standard of defence is heightened. Across international rugby fewer tackles are being missed and the players are getting fitter. And you can bring eight subs on to the pitch, which means there is less space available in the second half. It’s getting harder and harder.”
Hence teams’ reluctance to play too much rugby in the middle third of the field and the importance of a good kicking game. Entertainment can be subjective but the sport cannot afford the balance to tilt too far into risk-free conservatism. Borthwick is among those who would back a reduction in the number of permitted bench replacements from the present eight.
“There’s a bigger discussion to be had about the nature of the game. But what we’re seeing now is less space. To create more of it we need to have some level of fatigue in what we do. There are different areas you could tweak but one is the number of replacements. That will impact the amount of fatigue in the game and generate some space.”
For now, though, England need high work rate players who are also good over the ball. Sam Underhill and Ben Earl both fit that description, as does the returning reserve hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie, who missed the World Cup through injury. A complementary centre pairing will also be important. If it is decided not to deploy Ollie Lawrence at 12, Northampton’s uncapped Fraser Dingwall could come into the equation and be invited to show that Premiership form can translate to the Test arena.
Borthwick, either way, is cautiously optimistic that a slimmed-down, 10-team Premiership is now producing more of the taut, competitive contests that can help prepare players for the highest level. “There’s no doubt the density of the talent has increased in a number of teams. Whilst we may not have wanted it to have happened in the manner it happened, I think the standard has improved. That’s led to a more competitive Premiership and that’s good for our game.
“The closeness of the games is important. Test rugby is so tight and if we’re playing games where the scoreline is blown out, it is not preparing players for what we need to do. Teams are having to find ways to win these tight games. That breeds a mental intensity that wasn’t always there. We all know the mental intensity required in the Six Nations is incredible.”
When England relocate to Spain on Tuesday it will be for business rather than pleasure.
