Steve Borthwick admits pressure has hit England’s Six Nations campaign

“I respect that there has been a lot of debate about our tactical plans; when you look at the bottom line, when you look at the result and the number of tries scored, it’s completely understandable,” Borthwick said.

“I think it’s less about a major overhaul and more about improving the sharpness of our attack and getting over the try line.

“You have an overview, a structure of ‘this is how we want to approach different aspects of the game’, and then you talk about players bringing their own points of difference.”

The day after Saturday’s defeat against Italy in Rome, Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney issued a statement backing Borthwick and said he was confident the coach and his staff would “do their best to make this happen”.

Borthwick says he speaks to Sweeney “at least once or twice a week” and to the RFU’s director of rugby performance Conor O’Shea “pretty much every day”.

“We have always worked very, very closely together since I started this role in late 2022,” Borthwick added.

“I think I’ve always been very clear about the vision for the team, I got into the 2023 Rugby World Cup which is very soon initially very quickly and I’ve started to improve in each of those competition windows since then.

“We are all disappointed and disappointed.

“We came to this tournament with great desires, just like the players, but we could not achieve the goals we set for ourselves.”