Steve Borthwick ‘incredibly disappointed’ with England Six Nations performance vs France, saying team are ‘hurting’ after ‘stark reality’ | Rugby Union News

England’s Steve Borthwick speaks following his side’s record defeat at Twickenham, losing 53-10 to France in Six Nations; Borthwick says he is “incredibly disappointed,” that his team played “poorly” and are “hurting”; Coach says display showed how far off competing for titles England are

Steve Borthwick says he is “incredibly disappointed” with England’s humiliating record defeat to France at Twickenham in the Six Nations, adding they are “hurting” after the loss displayed a “stark reality”.

France secured a first Six Nations victory at Twickenham since 2005 on Saturday as ruthless efficiency and power in the face of an error-ridden England brought a comprehensive 53-10 success.

England conceded six tries in the defeat, and Borthwick admitted there were no positives to glean from the day.

“We’re incredibly disappointed with the performance,” he said at his post-match press conference.

“No one is under any illusions over what we’ve got to do. I think we’ve been pretty up front with that throughout. Today just shows, in stark reality, what that’s about.

“We fell considerably short, that’s the reality. My job is to make sure we learn and improve faster than any other team. We need to find a way to ensure that doesn’t happen again.

“We are incredibly disappointed. We wanted to put in a really good performance for the supporters today, and we weren’t able to do so. And that hurts us, and I’m sure it hurts the supporters as well.

“There will be no shortage of hard work to come out of this.”

Borthwick says the performance showed just how far off the top of world rugby his England side are

Having watched France race out into a 22-3 first-half lead, England did bring the game back to 22-10 early in the second half through a Freddie Steward try, before being blown away again thereafter through the visitors’ power and accuracy.

Borthwick was clear that the display showed just how far off competing for titles his England side are.

“Immense credit to the French team, their power, pace and class showed, and it showed where the gap is. I said before the game it was a formidable challenge, and it turned out to be.

“They played exceptionally well, we played poorly. We’ve got to learn from it and be better. We know where we are, and we were shown just how much work we have to do.

“Today we played the second-best team in the world, and they showed just how much better they are than where we currently are, and next week we play Ireland who are the best team in the world.

“We’ve got a good understanding of where we’re at as a team, and you can see how much work we have to do.

France battered England in nearly every department, scoring 53 points at Twickenham

“When you play the game and you lose the collisions as badly as today, and give the opposition quick-ball and offloads, and you’re losing in attack, where you’re not able to generate quick-ball with issues at the breakdown, it’s hard to get a foothold in the game and that was exactly the case today.

“We’ll apply ourselves in every way shape or form to make sure we do give everything our best efforts. That’s what we’re going to do.

“Now, what’s clear is while we had plans in place today to mitigate against that power, we didn’t execute enough and made errors. We need to go away and make sure we understand what went wrong, and how to make sure we’re better in that challenge going forward.”