"This England team has so much power to influence. As a young boy, I fell in love with the game watching England. This team that goes out here, I want it to be a team that makes people fall in love with the game. If you do that, the supporters here are going to love it" - Borthwick
Tuesday 20 December 2022 15:28, UK
New England head coach Steve Borthwick says he wants his side to make people "fall in love with rugby" after taking over following Eddie Jones' departure.
Borthwick, who was formally confirmed as Jones' successor on Monday, signed a five-year contract to spearhead a new coaching ticket which includes rugby league legend Kevin Sinfield, who joins as defence coach having worked alongside Borthwick at Leicester Tigers.
Speaking exclusively to Sky Sports News at Twickenham, Borthwick outlined his ambitions, plans for England's players, and his time working under predecessor Jones in the Japan and England national set-ups.
"It feels exciting. I feel incredibly proud and honoured," said Borthwick, who won 57 Test caps as a player between 2001 and 2010.
"Having played for the team, captained the team, been an assistant coach, to now be head coach is an incredible honour.
"This England rugby team has so much power to influence. As a young boy, I fell in love with the game watching the England rugby team.
"This team that goes out here and plays at the start of the Six Nations, I want it to be a team that makes people fall in love with the game.
"One that makes kids want to play rugby, and play for England.
"If you do that, the supporters here are going to love it.
"There's a great group of players here with England, and a group I think are desperate to do well, so I'm looking forward to working with them.
"It's 47 days until we're back here playing the first game of the Six Nations [vs Scotland], and this is day one for me.
"There's plenty to do. But when the players come into camp, we'll be clear on the priorities and what we need to do, so that when we go out there, we see a team that plays hard, competes for everything, and fights together."
Borthwick takes up the position with England reeling following a dreadful year in which they lost six Tests and won just five.
"One of the things that stands out to me, from speaking to the players and watching the players, is just how much they're hurting.
"They care deeply about the supporters. They care deeply about winning games for England. And I'm proud to be head coach of this team.
"But I understand that means nothing if we don't deliver. We want to produce a team that wins. We want to ensure we have a supporter base that is proud of their team.
"What's clear is that every single minute counts. That's the preparation time we have.
"This is day one for me, so from this day on I'll be making sure I work every single minute I can to help this team be as prepared as possible."
Before joining the Tigers in 2020 and leading them to last season's Gallagher Premiership title, Borthwick spent five years as England's forwards coach working under Jones.
"I've learnt so many different things from him over so many years, and I feel very grateful for that.
"One of the key aspects you learn there is you have to lead as you and be authentic in the way you lead. And that's what I'm going to do here.
"As a leader and coach, I love winning. I want this team to be a team that delivers. We've got a lots of work to do to get to that point, because we're behind, but we're going to do that work.
"And I love helping people, I get a huge amount of joy from seeing happiness in other people.
"Players and supporters enjoying success, that will bring a lot of joy to me."
Speaking to Sky Sports News at Twickenham, RFU Chief Executive Bill Sweeney first revealed why the governing body felt it necessary to make a change at the top of their senior men's coaching ticket just nine months before the Rugby World Cup.
"The Six Nations was disappointing, and we were hoping to do better, but it was a difficult one to read for different reasons.
"But then we had the Test series down in Australia, and came away with a 2-1 win there, which is a difficult place to win a series.
"So you come from that thinking: 'Right, we're starting to make some movement here', but then we have a very, very disappointing autumn, and given all the information, the review process, we just felt we needed to make changes, and we didn't have enough momentum going into 2023.
"We do want to reconnect with the fans now, but the decision was taken purely on performances on the pitch and what confidence we have that we could get momentum back for 2023."
Sweeney also revealed plans were in place for Borthwick to take over from Jones after the World Cup in France, with those plans brought forward in light of England's recent struggles.
"My first conversation with Leicester was in August of this year, and they've been very cooperative about this process, but the original intention was for after the World Cup.
"Clearly we've had to accelerate things, we had a number of conversations with them, and one of the principles we agreed was that they shouldn't be financially out of pocket, because Steve and Kevin are both coming before the end of their contracts.
"It's not a seven-figure sum, but we did make sure they were not financially out of pocket.
"That does happen in sport [costly coaching changes], every tournament we go into, we have a preview and a review, and every step of that way, we're looking at various different possible contingencies. So you do plan for it.
"Sport, again, is slightly different to business. Results are instantaneous and immediate, and sometimes you have to take action quicker than you would do somewhere else.
"World Cups are hard to win, and you need the rub of the green sometimes as well, so we wouldn't put any outrageous targets on the World Cup.
"This is a long-term rebuilding programme, and we want to re-establish England.
"We've talked about this being a new age for England going forward, to make sure we're laying the right foundations for the right progression for English rugby."
Borthwick to Sky Sports on his defence coach Kevin Sinfield:
"The sport of rugby has taught me so many different things around being part of a team, how you work together for each other, how you help your mates, how you look after each other.
"And if there's one person that embodies that more than anybody else in rugby, it's Kevin Sinfield.
"I think the guy is a really fantastic coach, but he's an incredible human being.
"He has the power to move people, the power to lead. Incredible person."
Sky Sports rugby league pundit Jon Wilkin on Sinfield:
"As a Rugby League fan, it's probably a catastrophic failure on the game's part that somebody that's had 25, 30 years of experience, developed their experience in the game of rugby league, is then lost to Rugby Union.
"In typical Rugby League style, we stand back and applaud and say, 'isn't it brilliant that one of our most revered players has gone over to Rugby Union?'. But it fills me with sadness in some respects that the game that I grew up playing and has given me so many opportunities, can't keep hold of the talents like Kevin Sinfield.
"That being said, for Kevin who seems to just go from strength to strength, from success to success, Rugby League's loss has been Leicester Tiger's gain this season and it will certainly be England's gain and I'm excited to see how he does in that role.
"My experience with playing with Kev and being around Kev is he's emotionally so stable, to the point of which it's almost dull. One thing I've seen from Kevin over the last 12 months - with his work with Rob Burrow and Motor Neurone Disease, his good friend who is really suffering at the minute - is an emotional side.
"I think it's that emotional side that he'll need to master to be great in the England setup."
