Former England back Austin Healey has questioned whether Steve Borthwick is right for the main role after comparing him to the other top coaches in the game.
The ex-Red Rose star, who earned 51 caps for his country, believes that the head honcho made several errors in their recent Autumn Nations Series campaign.
Healey has not called on Borthwick to be sacked, but the 51-year-old has suggested that the RFU should consider bringing in someone above him.
Bringing someone else in
“When you see all the footage of England training, Borthwick is on the pitch in a tracksuit, running around and he’s tight, he’s in the areas, he’s looking at the detail,” he told TNT Sports.
“For me, a top guy is the guy who’s stood on the scaffolding looking down and getting the bigger picture. You put Michael Cheika there, you put Joe Schmidt there, you put Rassie Erasmus there.
“I think that for me is probably a better combination.”
England lost their first three games of the campaign to the All Blacks, Wallabies and Springboks, and Healey felt that Borthwick’s errors were key factors in those results.
“For me, Borthwick made some fundamental mistakes in the Autumn Nations Series,” he said.
“He named a side against the All Blacks on a Tuesday – never ever do that, that is a ridiculous thing to do. Never, ever do that, unless you’re out-and-out favourites to win.
“There’s just no point doing it, it doesn’t benefit you in any way. He followed a pre-contrived substitution with 20 minutes to go against New Zealand and took off a kicker who hadn’t missed off the tee and was playing good rugby, to put somebody on who hadn’t played rugby for six weeks.
“He started an outside centre in a defensive system who hadn’t played rugby all season – he had 50 minutes of rugby. These are fundamental errors that cause losses.
“Would a Cheika, would a Schmidt, would an Erasmus have done that? I don’t think he would, because he’s stepped back from that detail and has a bit more of an overview of the whole scenario, and I think that’s the mistake that Borthwick has made.”
Game plan
Healey was also critical of the gameplan as the ex-England back insisted that Marcus Smith was the primary reason they were competitive.
“I think if we take Marcus Smith out of the equation as well, I’m not sure exactly what England have created. If George Ford plays in that 10 shirt, we don’t score three of the tries that we saw in the first three games,” he said.
“Smith’s been central to quite a few of the really big plus points, but you can’t just rely on one player like that. I think the overall strategy of crashing your forwards into brick walls isn’t working.
“The French don’t necessarily do that, it might look like they do that at times, even though they’ve got a bigger pack, but there’s a lot more deception. You look at the Thibaud Flament try against Argentina, there was deception involved in that.”
