Five years on, few of those will be factors in 2026’s under-performance.
Borthwick has a large backroom staff, led by senior assistant coach Richard Wigglesworth, who oversees defence, with Lee Blackett – recruited from Premiership champions Bath – in charge of the attack.
Kevin Sinfield (kicking and skills), Tom Harrison (scrum), Joe El-Abd (forwards) and Byron McGuigan (contact and back three) were also part of the Six Nations set-up.
The Professional Game Partnership, launched in 2024, also means England have greater control over their top players’ preparation and medical treatment.
However, 15 of their players were part of the summer’s British and Irish Lions hectic tour to Australia.
Itoje, who exceeded guideline limits on the number of minutes top players should play in 2023-24, led the tourists to a 2-1 series win in another busy campaign.
France, who have a policy of resting stars for summer tours, have won five out of the seven Six Nations tournaments directly after a Lions summer.
The 2021 review called for more refereeing input in England’s preparations, given their indiscipline. The team has fallen foul of the officials once more this year, with eight yellow cards shown to them across the five matches.
Matt Dawson and Paul Grayson, both part of England’s Rugby World Cup-winning squad of 2003, believes the answer to ironing out the team’s inconsistencies is within the players themselves.
“I would direct it all at the players,” Dawson told Rugby Union Weekly.
“They were accountable against France, they took responsibility for that and got themselves into a frenzied, physical state to take France apart.
“I saw the players owning it today.”
Grayson added: “The best teams are player-led, not coach-led.
“They have to set the culture, agree some standards and a framework, and then the players take it on because they want to win, not because they are concerned about proving critics wrong or anything else.”
