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Tom Hamilton, Senior Writer
Steve Borthwick has defended the England environment after two of his coaches handed in their resignations over the summer, and confirmed he is eager to add Saracens general manager Phil Morrow to his backroom staff.
Borthwick unveiled his 36-man England squad for the autumn internationals at Twickenham on Wednesday, but the talk was dominated by how he has navigated a summer of coaching upheaval.
Both head of strength and conditioning Aled Walters and defence coach Felix Jones handed in their notices in August. Walters is off to join the Ireland setup, while Jones is working his 12-month notice period in a remote capacity focused on analysis.
It has hardly been a straightforward couple of months for Borthwick, and he has already tweaked the backroom staff with the appointment of Joe El-Abd as defence coach — who will combine his England responsibilities with his director of rugby role at Oyonnax until the end of the season.
But to see two high-profile departures just a year into the cycle leading up to the next World Cup in 2027 led to questions over whether there were issues behind the scenes with England.
The decisions of both Walters and Jones to leave came as a curveball for Borthwick.
“Clearly, Aled making a decision to go and join Ireland was a surprise,” Borthwick said. “He talked about wanting a different challenge. He made that decision, a very personal decision and I wished him well with it — not against us, clearly! He’s a coach I have a lot of admiration for, and we’ve worked together for a long time so I’m disappointed by it.
“It was a few days later that Felix told me, having had the Aled news, that he didn’t want to work with the team, and he wanted to move in a different direction. The two of them are close, but it was still disappointing and surprising. I hadn’t anticipated it.
“As ever, it’s professional sport; things change, and things move on. Every case is individual. I understand when situations like that happen, we want to see the drama on the pitch and when we see stuff happening off the pitch, it’s characterised sometimes as drama.”
Borthwick insists working for England is still one of the most desirable jobs in world rugby and said he was impressed by the calibre of applications for Walters and Jones’ jobs.
“Reflecting on our practices and environments daily is something I spoke to the players about just last week, about the importance of reflection,” Borthwick said. “I respected those two guys decided they wanted to go elsewhere for individual reasons and personal circumstances.
“But there’s also a lot of people that want to be here. And I’ll go back to the core and the coaching group is there. The high-quality CVs I got sent means there’s a lot of people who want to coach this England team.”
With Walters departing England, Dan Tobin will step up to lead the strength and conditioning programme during the autumn internationals. Tobin is a new recruit from Gloucester and was set to work under Walters, but England are yet to bring in Walters’ replacement. The man they want is Morrow, but he is contracted to Saracens. The RFU had suggested a job-sharing system where Morrow would combine his England duties with his Saracens role, but that proposal was rejected by the Gallagher Premiership clubs.
Borthwick remains unequivocal in wanting to bring Morrow in. “He wants to [join], I want him to [join], the players want to be coached by him, so hopefully we can make that happen,” Borthwick said. “We tried a couple of different ways. We went through a very transparent and open process with the clubs, and clearly the PRL clubs decided that they stood against it.
“I think we are still intent on finding a way to make this work. I think we’ve got to try to be respectful there so that we are not disrupting any one of our clubs. The whole of the rugby ecosystem in England is important for the success of the England team.”
If the RFU are to push ahead with appointing Morrow, then either they will have to pay compensation to Saracens, or Morrow will need to resign.
Borthwick said he hopes a solution will be found in the future, but said it is unlikely any resolution will be found in time for the Six Nations. “I think that would probably be quite a tight timescale to operate to,” Borthwick said of bringing in Morrow before next year’s championship.
“I’ll praise the RFU again here for trying to do this in a way to minimise any disruption to our clubs. All those clubs are important to the English rugby system. I’m always looking to try and improve and evolve this team.”