Borthwick clearly believes in deja vu and he knows from personal experience how fortunes can change
“I remember it as one meeting without coaches, although obviously there were lots of meetings in any World Cup week, some with coaches, some without: leadership group meetings and informal chats between players that something needed to be done, which led to the meeting.
“Basically the theme was not to simplify everything and be as difficult to play against as possible, with a traditional English game plan and our strengths of set-piece and defence and make the more favoured teams make mistakes. “It required 100 per cent buy-in. There may have been a feeling amongst the players that the coaches weren’t all on the same page, so we needed to take control. My take is Brian was delighted that the players had taken the onus to take control and it felt like a line in the sand moment.”
Kay recalls Borthwick in 2007 “wasn’t a main voice as he wasn’t a leader in that group yet. He wasn’t involved in the first match and was only a barely-used sub in the South Africa game, so you wouldn’t have expected him to be that vocal.” But are there clues to lessons Borthwick has learnt now? Ashton regretted getting to France on the Monday before the first match; Borthwick’s men arrived 10 days in advance, on Thursday of this week.
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