Rugby World Cup 2019: Steve Borthwick unlikely to leave England for Leicester Tigers despite talks

England assistant coach has held discussions with the Premiership club over a future role at Welford Road but is expected to reject any approach to remain with the national team set-up

Jack de Menezes
Miyazaki
Saturday 14 September 2019 07:54 BST
Comments
Rugby World Cup: England in profile

England assistant coach Steve Borthwick is unlikely to leave the international set-up for Leicester Tigers, despite the two parties holding talks.

It emerged on Friday that the current forwards coach has been approached by the Premiership club over a future role in their senior management team, with the Welford Road outfit eyeing a major shake-up in an effort to address their alarming slump in recent years.

The Times reported that Borthwick is in the running for a position within current director of rugby Geordan Murphy’s coaching set-up, but that he would not consider leaving his England position until after the 2020 Six Nations.

But The Independent understands that the Rugby Football Union are relaxed on the matter given that the 39-year-old is secured on a rolling contract and are instead focussing all efforts on the imminent Rugby World Cup campaign, which Borthwick has indicated he is 100 per cent committed to.

When asked by The Independent about whether the talks had been a distraction, England head coach Jones refused to be drawn on the matter.

“I've got no idea, mate,” Jones said. “Do you want to tell me? I've got no idea. I'm not interested in anything post World Cup.”

Borthwick has been touted as a potential successor for Jones if and when he leaves the head coach role, with the suggestion that he could walk away from the job following the World Cup even though he in contracted to England until the end of the 2020/21 season. Jones could also be sacked if England fail to make the semi-finals, and the Australian has kept his future intentions under wraps by making various statements over the last 12 months.

The RFU’s director of professional rugby, Nigel Melville, suggested earlier this year that England have already put a succession plan in place should Jones leave, but stopped short of confirming any names or whether the next England head coach would be an established big-hitter, a domestic appointment or an internal promotion.

Borthwick has previously held talks with Ulster and Wasps but elected to remain committed to England, despite seeing fellow assistant coach Paul Gustard surprisingly leave last year in order to become head coach of Harlequins.

But while the talks could potentially unsettle preparations just nine days before England’s opening game against Tonga, it’s not thought that this has rocked the ship too much ahead of the curtain-raiser.

Speaking in Miyazaki on Wednesday, Borthwick gave an update on what England have planned ahead of the Tonga clash, with their early arrival organised to try to help the team get over any jet leg before the match in Sapporo.

“The first period of time will be spent recovering from the journey because there's the jet lag factor,” Borthwick said.

“Then we'll have another push in terms of our fitness. We'll focus on our conditioning for the next couple of games. We'll move into game prep at the appropriate time.

“There are a few days here that give us a really good opportunity to do some work.”

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in