Are England underdogs for their crunch World Cup opener against Argentina? Lewis Ludlam certainly thinks so – “Coming into a tournament as an underdog is a beautiful position to be in” – but Owen Farrell, suspended for Saturday’s match in Marseille, is less sure: “Not necessarily”. Steve Borthwick, for his part, refused to engage with the question. Everyone is entitled to their own view but an inability to agree on expectations does not exactly scream ideal preparation.
Nevertheless, England have decamped to their team base in Le Touquet and taken their optimism that things will be alright on the night against Argentina with them. Tucked away in northern France, away from their supporters who have all but lost faith in the tournament chances, England seem to have taken a collective breath out and Borthwick insists he is “very confident” that his players will produce a performance that has eluded them this summer – arguably since he took charge of his first match in February – in Marseille.
Amid suggestions that the players are increasingly questioning the risk-averse gameplan, Borthwick as good as admitted that there would be no deviating from route one. He has been boosted with a positive injury bulletin on a number of his squad with Courtney Lawes, Elliot Daly and Tom Curry on course to face the Pumas but personnel has been less of a problem this summer, rather the issue is system failure.
“You can’t change everything from one week to another week,” said Borthwick. “You need to have a way of playing you can build upon. Ideally you can start building that [after] the last World Cup as most other teams have. We’ve been trying to build it over the past six months and in many ways, because the coaching team only came together 10 or 11 weeks ago, we’ve been trying to do this for 10 or 11 weeks.
“What I’ve been trying to do is strengthen the direction we’re going in and try to get better at it. Fundamentally it’s come down to our execution and not taking opportunities, not getting the scoreboard ticking over. I can’t stress enough, coming to Le Touquet, being here, the World Cup’s really now begun. This is it. We are in it. I sense these competitive animals that I have, they’re desperate to get into this tournament.”
Borthwick has regularly talked about “learning fast” since his appointment at Christmas, about “bringing a team together as quickly as possible” but his confidence in his players at least delivering a performance of note on Saturday is hard to justify based on recent evidence. Seemingly, it is a leap of faith that his senior players, those who steered England to the final four years ago, will deliver back on the World Cup stage.
“When I look at this team, and you start looking at the likes of Ellis Genge, Joe Marler, Owen Farrell, Courtney Lawes, Maro Itoje … the list could go on,” said Borthwick. “We’ve got players who know how to perform on the biggest occasions and that’s one of the central things we need to do this Saturday, perform together. That is one of the crucial things, bringing it together on Saturday night. I’m very confident in the group of players we have who have experience, talent, people who have done it on the biggest of occasions and I’m very confident that on Saturday night that’s what they’ll do.
“I think that through the experiences of recent times I see a team that’s getting stronger, I’ve been in England teams that have been through tough times and sometimes the team hadn’t stuck together. I see a team that’s getting tighter. All those experiences are making this group stronger. Each day we have them is another opportunity to work on our game, take the lessons from the past and make sure we’re getting better.”
Curry has not played any rugby since the Premiership final at the end of May and, having also missed the Six Nations through injury, he has not appeared under Borthwick for England. He has been nursing an ankle injury but England seemingly have no qualms about throwing him straight into the heat of the battle against Argentina, possibly at No 8 with Billy Vunipola suspended. “He’s been doing plenty of skill work,” said Borthwick. “Everyone really knows about the conditioning he has. I’ve no doubt that he would be able to handle returning straight into Test rugby.”
