‘great Blend’: Borthwick Praises England’s Character After Beating Australia

Steve Borthwick praised his team’s resilience and composure arsenic England secured their eighth Test triumph successful a row, beating Australia 25-7 in a soggy contest. England bossed nan match, scoring 4 tries to one, and dominated nan skies arsenic some teams reverted to a kicking battle.

Even though Borthwick lamented a deficiency of accuracy successful nan wide channels, citing galore line-breaks that were near unconverted, he was pleased pinch nan power his players maintained. “There was a play wherever nan crippled was tight successful very difficult conditions against an Australian broadside that are reliable and really good drilled,” he said.

“But arsenic I watched our team, I thought they were really composed, really composed and knew what to do next. The players were really clear connected what they were attempting to do.”

Along pinch scores from Ben Earl, Alex Mitchell and Luke Cowan-Dickie, connected his 50th quality for his country, Henry Pollock dotted down successful a player-of-the-match capacity disconnected nan bench. One of six British & Irish Lions among nan replacements, Pollock injected power and gait successful nan closing stages.

“He’s a shot of energy,” Borthwick said of Pollock, who scored his 3rd England effort successful his 5th match. “I emotion having that characteristic successful nan squad. We’ve sewage a awesome blend of personalities processing wrong nan team.”

The No 8 came connected aft 51 minutes on pinch 4 different forwards. South Africa’s Springboks person won 2 World Cups pinch a akin tactic, known arsenic nan Bomb Squad, while France person besides adopted this ploy.

Australia caput coach Joe Schmidt conceded that England’s spot successful extent turned nan lucifer successful their favour Photograph: Ben Whitley/PA

Maro Itoje was asked if England had travel up pinch a nickname for their grouping. “I don’t deliberation so,” said nan captain. “The guys who came disconnected nan chair were fantastic. You ever want nan guys to travel disconnected nan chair to adhd and prime up nan energy, prime up nan strength of nan team, and they decidedly did that. They were all, to a man, fantastic.”

Last season, England made a wont of letting leads gaffe arsenic they mislaid respective games precocious on. “Finishing games off, there’s a number of factors that travel to finishing those games off,” Borthwick said. “Sometimes you spell done immoderate achy experiences. But this is simply a squad that is eager to learn. So we’ll reside those issues we tin study from. And there’ll beryllium plentifulness erstwhile we reappraisal it, we could do better. So nan purpose is to beryllium a amended squad adjacent Saturday.”

Australia’s coach, Joe Schmidt, trim a disappointment fig and conceded that England’s chair proved to beryllium nan quality betwixt nan sides. “They really did measurement up nan level of strength and nan beingness combat that they brought,” he said. “Until that time, nan crippled was really wellbalanced.”

The Wallabies’ captain, Harry Wilson, gave in installments to England’s pack, putting it connected par pinch those of nan Springboks and New Zealand, but blamed his ain side’s wastefulness for nan result. “We were a squad that prides ourselves connected being rather meticulous location and a fewer of america decidedly fto nan squad down there, and we conscionable weren’t arsenic meticulous passim nan full game,” he said.