As taken aback as I was by the honesty of Steve Borthwick when he said that he felt the England jersey was weighing heavily on his players, based on the evidence of the Scotland defeat I would agree with him. At times it looked like the players went into themselves after making mistakes and when you start compounding errors with more errors it is often a manifestation of what is going on mentally.
Identifying why is no easy task because when good players come into camp in form and on the back of impressive seasons, as a lot of this squad have, you expect that the shirt will elevate them because they are surrounded by the best players in the country and the best coaches, but it seems the jersey has been diminishing them. The hope is that they’ve addressed the necessary coping mechanisms should things start to unravel again.
I look back to my time playing with England and I wouldn’t say that the jersey weighed heavily, we just weren’t good enough. I look at this group individually and I see players who are good enough to reach the levels Ireland are currently at. It’s the unlocking of that potential. In my era we didn’t perform to the best of our abilities but even if we did, there were a number of teams who were better than us.
England’s durability and resilience needs to be worked on because in the first 20 minutes there was only one team in the game against Scotland. Suddenly Duhan van der Merwe scored, there was a sucker punch after half-time and England didn’t recover. They need to learn to hang tough in those moments but they did not have the mental or physical stamina to stay with the gameplan.
They have to be able to apply themselves for longer in matches, not just opening quarters. Ultimately how teams play and perform is a reflection of how you prepare in training. All players and coaches will tell you that. If England play well this weekend, win and score some really good tries they’ll say it was down to the good work they put in during the week. So the same should apply if they underperform and look fragile, there must be something missing.
And make no mistake, England are going to be under a lot of pressure this weekend. I’m not talking about external noise but what Ireland are going to physically bring. Coping and withstanding those long periods of pressure is the first thing they need to show in terms of having made progress from the Scotland defeat.
England will open their 2025 Six Nations campaign by tackling Ireland in Dublin. The competition begins on the evening of Friday 31 January with France facing Wales in Paris, while England play the following day, when Scotland take on Italy at Murrayfield.
England then host France, Scotland and Italy, before meeting Wales in Cardiff on the competition's final day.
Ireland's run of fixtures, meanwhile, sees them travel to Scotland and Wales after the England match, then France visit Dublin before a finale against Italy in Rome.
2025 Six Nations fixtures (kick-off times GMT)
31 Jan France v Wales (8.15pm)
1 Feb Scotland v Italy (2.15pm), Ireland v England (4.45pm)
8 Feb Italy v Wales (2.15pm), England v France (4.45pm)
9 Feb Scotland v Ireland (3pm)
22 Feb Wales v Ireland (2.15pm), England v Scotland (4.45pm)
23 Feb Italy v France (3pm)
8 Mar Ireland v France (2.15pm), Scotland v Wales (4.45pm)
9 Mar England v Italy (3pm)
15 Mar Italy v Ireland (2.15pm), Wales v England (4.45pm), France v Scotland (8pm)
When they have the ball in hand they need to get to a point where they’re thinking the same thing. Against Scotland, when they successfully turned the ball over, there might be one or two players coming alive but there could be five or six sitting in the pocket waiting for the ball to be kicked. What a waste of an opportunity.
They need to have that same stimulus running through them and that’s why I like the selection of Immanuel Feyi-Waboso. You know what he brings, he’s so dynamic, elusive and powerful. When he gets the ball in space you would be silly to not anticipate him doing something and they can come alive collectively.
Recently I’ve felt that England were at this biting point when it comes to their gameplan. They’ve been holding on to the methods that got them a bronze medal last year – that pragmatic approach – while at the same time trying to evolve. Inevitably, when they have come under pressure it’s only natural for muscle memory to kick in and for them to revert back to what they are familiar with. They want to be a better attacking team, an attack-first team, so they need to move beyond this biting point. The moment England have that clarity and are not clinging on to what used to be they will look more coherent.
There will be a temptation against Ireland to revert to what so nearly worked against South Africa in the World Cup. But I really hope they don’t. They should not waste games. Why don’t you stress test the gameplan and the tactics you think will take this team forward in the next couple of years against a brilliant team this weekend
It’s an opportunity to see where this gameplan can take you and then you can properly analyse it. If you don’t have a body of evidence then you will never know. You have to learn – sometimes you fail but you have to stress test it.
