Steve Borthwick is under pressure over his position as England coach following a disheartening streak of five consecutive losses but his captain Jamie George has leapt to his defence.
After falling to South Africa with a 29-20 scoreline at Twickenham on Saturday and previously losing against New Zealand and Australia, England brace for their last fixture in an underwhelming Autumn Series facing Japan.
The string of defeats marks England’s poorest run since 2018 and has seen them endure three back-to-back Twickenham losses for the first time since 2006, which further heaps pressure on Borthwick.
Despite this troubling trend, the Rugby Football Union remains supportive of England’s head coach. As does skipper George, who has come forward to shoulder the blame.
“We are as frustrated as everyone else and it’s important for us as players to take responsibility for the last three performances,” he said.
“When you look at the positions that we put ourselves in across all three games and when we play to the plan, I think we are a very, very dangerous team.
“When we stray away from that, we allow teams opportunities and that’s exactly what happened against South Africa.”
George emphasised that the team will face up to their errors: “We will be holding our hands up, we will be looking at ourselves and we’re making sure that we find the fixes so that we are ready to go against Japan.
“Of course we are disappointed with the results. We wanted to give the England fans three wins for three.
“There are definitely things that, of course, we needed to get better at. We need to find the fixes to closing out games.
“But I have every confidence and belief in the players and the staff that we will do everything we possibly can to be a significantly better team come next weekend, but also looking ahead to the Six Nations.”
In a recurring theme over the last five Tests, England failed to capitalise on a winning position and played their decisive final quarter without their captain on the field.
This time, George was substituted for Luke Cowan-Dickie with 32 minutes remaining. Speaking to BBC Sport, the Saracens hooker said: “I felt all right out there.”
Borthwick’s use of his replacements has been scrutinised this autumn, although Marcus Smith was allowed to finish the game at fly-half against South Africa.
“We have leaders all the way across the field. If you look at the team that was on at the end, there was plenty of leaders in that team,” George stated.
“If you speak to every player, they would always want to play every moment of every game. The hooker jersey is an 80-minute performance across two players.”
Jack Van Poortvliet, making his first England appearance in over a year, insisted it is up to the team to halt the slump.
“It is on us as players, we are in that position to go and get a result and turn it around,” the Leicester scrum-half said.
“We are going to keep learning, keep getting better and keep pushing, but the underlying feeling now is frustration. We are a close group that is progressing, but we need to fix the errors.”
