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Steve Borthwick heads into England’s autumn campaign backed by the Rugby Football Union to see out his contract regardless of results between now and the World Cup.
Borthwick’s reign as head coach has been extended until 2028 Six Nations two months ago, although earlier this year England have overturned their worst performance in the history of the tournament.
Wins against Fiji and Argentina during a July tour that began with a comprehensive loss of South Africa it eased the pressure on Borthwick, who is currently preparing his team for Sunday Nations Championship conflict with Australia at the Allianz Stadium.
Four years ago his predecessor Eddie Jones was sacked at the end of an autumn that produced just one win in four Tests, but RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney ruled out Borthwick leaving before Australia 2027.
“We are committed to Steve,” said Sweeney, who made the decision to replace Jones in 2022 after his seven-year reign unraveled amid losses from Cougars and the Springboks and a draw with New Zealand.
“We have extended his contract until the middle of 2028. We believe in what he is doing.
“We’ve had a tough Six Nations this year, we accept that, but we just want to see continued progress and we’re backing him to do that.”
England’s four defeats in the Six Nations, including a historic first loss to Italy, weakened Borthwick’s position going into the post-tournament review, but he emerged from the process with the support of the RFU.
And Sweeney subsequently decided to extend his tenure for an additional eight months after initially being set to step down after the World Cup.
“We just felt that going into the World Cup was a tough enough challenge anyway,” said Sweeney, who added that succession planning for the post-Borthwick era was “continually looked at”.
“We wanted our coaching team to be focused only on the World Cup and not thinking ‘Oh, I don’t have a set role’ and thinking about that in the build-up.”
“It was to remove any distraction around that and the transition of the same coaching team to the Six Nations in 2028. That was the only intention.
“It’s exactly the same in the Olympic world. All performance directors have contracts that last six months after the Olympics. We wanted to remove any uncertainty or disruption.”
England play Australia, Japan and New Zealand this autumn before taking part in the finals weekend, the culmination of the inaugural Nations Championship held at Twickenham over three days.
It’s billed as a battle of the hemispheres as rivals from the north and south go head-to-head according to where they finish on their pool tables, with results from July also taken into account.
Ticket sales for the two finals on Friday, November 27 have been slow, but sales for Saturday and Sunday are encouraging, says Sweeney.
