Matt Dawson warns England boss Steve Borthwick over making Eddie Jones error
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Rugby World Cup winner Matt Dawson has given England boss Steve Borthwick a word of advice in the aftermath of their heartbreaking defeat to South Africa in Saturday’s semi-final, as he has warned the head coach of repeating Eddie Jones’ failings. Jones held the top job before Borthwick, but was sacked less than a year ago. He then went on to lead Australia to their dismal pool-stage exit in France.
Borthwick has not been afraid to tinker with his team, making three changes from the quarter-final win over Fiji to face the Springbok, but Dawson believes that there needs to be a “consistency in selection” moving forward. He urged the former Leicester Tigers boss to keep faith with the senior players in the squad and not to fall into the same trap as his predecessor, by sticking with a settled team.
“My view is simple. If you are good enough, you are good enough – at either end of the age scale,” Dawson wrote for the BBC. “Use the young players to push the older players. Use the older players to pass on their experience to the younger players. Together, that competition and friction helps push the whole team forward.
“The last thing you want to do is prematurely and arbitrarily ditch anyone over, say, 32. You lose experience and knowhow and, if you lose a few games, you lose momentum.
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“The difference instead has to be in how we bring players into the set-up. Coach Steve Borthwick’s predecessor Eddie Jones would constantly bring players in and out. There was no consistency in selection. There was no chance to build a team and its patterns.”
One of Borthwick’s key changes was to break up the partnership between Maro Itoje and Ollie Chessum in the second row as the latter was replaced by George Martin. However, Martin was one of the star performers who ended up just short as Handre Pollard’s late penalty broke England’s hearts to book the Springbok’s place in the final against New Zealand on Saturday.
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Dawson has picked out three areas that Borthwick can tinker with ahead of next year’s Six Nations, looking at the battle in the second row, which hooker can challenge Jamie George and the playmakers to back up at scrum-half.
“If either George Martin or Ollie Chessum is Borthwick’s man in the second row, he has to show some faith and give them a concerted run of games,” Dawson added.
“There are areas to look at. Are Theo Dan and Jack Walker the hookers to push Jamie George? Who are the scrum-halves behind Jack van Poortvliet and Alex Mitchell?”
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