Borthwick Extends England Contract: Pressure Still On?

0:00Breaking news from the rugby world today is of course Steve Bawfuck has his contract extended to the end of the six nations in 2028. We had loads of comments, we had lots of views on it, myself and Coli thought we could chance to chat it through and discuss our thoughts regarding this. And if you're tuning into this to think that me and Benning have a fight about it, unfortunately we're not, because we're saving our fighting for 100,000 subscribers who's going to get the YouTube back. So please, if you're watching this time subscribe, please do, and then there might be five of the cows. So Coli, the news has come out today. Can you tell everyone the details please? Yes, Steve Bawfuck has had his contract extended past the 2028 six nations apparently in a bid to avoid uncertainty over his future before and during next seasons, rugby world cup. And the news comes via rugby union weekly via the BBC. So they caught up with Conor, I say that's still available so you can listen to the full interview. But in terms of what we've read and the snippets that you've read out, it's obviously extending long enough that is either giving breathing space for the coaches so that they're not having to be distracted, not having to be answering questions about what does their future look like, although

1:03those questions are already been asked and we're not even a world cup yet. I think the questions always be asked, right? No matter how all your contract is, there will be us. I think in some regards, there is a you'd hope as humans and the coaches in that staff, there is a the extensions are done for a certain. So you're not going to the world cup and lead up to the world cup and the coach is distracted thinking I haven't got a job in three months time, four months time and they, you know, you're talking to clubs, you're talking to things and you're distracted away from your day job, which is prepping the national team to do the best it can because you're thinking about a job elsewhere. So I think which is natural to happen, like coaches doing it, you know, everyone, coached our human beings and they have contracts and you have more, which is no one has bills to pay. So, you know, you want some certainty about your future and obviously rugby, you've got short-term things, players normally lock up their contracts a year in advance, whereas coaches don't have that. So I think this move is basically more of a, I don't think if things go horrendously wrong, it will change. You know, I mean, they can still leave after you can submit the options to make a change, but I think it just allows the coaches to have lead up to the world cup and even the six

2:04months before that basically just taking a full focus on their jobs and there's no distractions. So I think that's the main point of it. There's obviously a lot of opinions out there because the fact is he says he will have his contract extended and when you look at it in terms of the results that England have had of late and the performance and I think that's the key in the tactics, which is coach driven and you look at that, I think for a lot of people, this is a big surprise to see him like know that it will be extended. Now, if this was done a couple of years ago or the autumn last year where England went on a bit of a run, they put some games together, you kind of say, okay, that made sense at that point, but given the wet England around and the run they've been on, this does surprise me that they have come out and said it will be extended. Yes, it does based on the form, but I think ever since last six nations when England finished fifth and underperformed, there was an opportunity, if they're going to make a change, you kind of make it then because you give the new coach a year running and again, I don't know if they were looking,

3:05they weren't looking at whatever, but as soon as that happened and you almost commit to your coaching staff, you know that, but as soon as that happened and you led into the Nations championship, you made a commitment to your staff and that staff to take the team through to the World Cup and I think if that was going to happen, the extension on the back of it, like that's the 27 World Cup, 2028 Six Nations is pretty much three months afterwards, you know what I mean, and then it takes through maybe to the summer. So actually, it probably, the extension is only for, it could be six months, you know, for that staff and that just ties them over to possibly the end of the season. So your staff are on, taking jobs made away through and after the World Cup, if the new job there's time to look into it. So again, I, you don't want to speculate on people's future and anything like that, but I don't think this is, I know there'll be lots of comments out there saying, voicing their opinions, but I don't think this potentially changes. I think it's a, you know, just to reaffirms that this coach is staff will taking on through to the World Cup, which we're kind of new anyway after the Six Nations, and I think it just reassures the people, rather than the coaches, but the actual people that they have a job through to

4:08the end of the season and that they don't have to be distracted and they can just purely focus on rugby, which if you're doing one fan, it's important because you don't want your coaches, you know, we've had it before me where coaches are in camp and it's like, oh, he's gonna get this job, he's gonna get this job, he's gonna get this job, he's gonna get this job, and it's just murmurs and it brings certain levels of instability and you don't want that, especially with a World Cup and a massive World Cup around the corner. But you've seen with like Steve Hansen in 2015, you knew that was his last World Cup. Ian Foster got to the World Cup final 23, you knew that he was his last World Cup. So it's not as if it hasn't been done in the past and you know that there's gonna be a transitional someone coming after. I guess the thing is when we've been involved with Ian, we had Martin Johnson 2011 that went to Atlanta and then came in. We had Stuart Lancaster in 2015 World Cup, he went Eddie Jones Camp came in. I guess some of it is maybe to protect the fact there is a short window after World Cup and maybe they can't get the coaching staff together of who they potentially would like moving into the following World Cup in 2031. The thing is, and if you think about this from a, if you're coaching that team, if you're

5:11seeing Balkan's coaches and the RFU, then you're out of contract after the World Cup, the RFU have got to do diligence on finding a coach before the World Cup. If that's happening, you don't feel very back to the England coach to you, so you're gonna look elsewhere and similarly with if you're a player in that situation and you know someone you're a placement, if you're a player playing and you know the club, for instance, is looking at your replacement and going, you'd be distracted, wouldn't you? So actually tying you down for a longer period of time, I guess it might by the RFU time, but it just means that those conversations should happen post-World Cup when they should happen. And if you think World Cup was really, really well-ing when the staff it's easy, you make a decision just to extend them. If it doesn't go well, you might make a change, but at the same time, you're not doing that change pre-World Cup, are you not having those conversations pre-World Cup, which you know we talk about this country about everyone being aligned, you want to see this national team, everyone aligned to winning and all this, everything's aligned to performance. You can't honestly say you're aligned with performance if this coach is, you know, this job is sort of on the line on other conversations about we're gonna know about how good the World

6:12Cup is, we're actually gonna bring someone else into the matter of this out of his bag, we're gonna bring someone else into that. That's not backing your, that's not backing the team, not giving the players the best chance of doing stuff. For me, it's news, but I think it's good news, I think for England as a whole, whether what your opinion of results, coaches, whatever it is, I think you take people out of it as an England structure for England rugby, I think it's good news because no matter how coach that is, whoever, you know, coach, I say they're different coaches, they say they have the stability and they're not looking for jobs beforehand and everything can happen post-World Cup, whereas at the minute, those conversations are gonna have to happen pre-World Cup, no matter how well the World Cup went, if went badly, you still have a final coach, you went good, these coaches are out, you know, contract, but and you don't want to, if England do really well, when Conor Ashay has come out and said that one of the five teams that could win the World Cup, they're thinking of winning the World Cup, but you've really got there a place within place which you'd have to do because they're out of contract, it just, it's a fuck, it's a chit show, isn't it, really? So it just buys time and allows these conversations open post-World Cup when you know what's happened at the World Cup, because you're back in this staff, we said this since the last six nations, they're back in the staff to take to the World Cup, so

7:15these conversations happen after the World Cup, and that's the sensible time to do it, in my opinion. The landscape's interesting because after the six nations, they did this review, they deemed that it was all changeable, resolvable, we saw in the summer there were some bits that we saw in the six nations, certainly discipline-wise, certainly starts the game that we saw a similar theme that we saw in the six nations, even after review, we then saw it again in the summer, I look at it from the outside thinking, if the autumn goes wrong for England, and we don't get performance on the and the six nations lead in, and it still goes wrong, yes, they will go to the World Cup, it very much seems they're back in Steve to that, but it could be a disaster by the time they get to the World Cup, in terms where the players are, where that groups are, where the occasions are, and that becomes a very dangerous thing. The only other thing I can think of as why you would extend it, as why you can maybe look at that, is if you go, if they're trying to look at potential England coaches to come in after Steve, this is hypothetical, say that if Steve was to go after World Cup, let's say, maybe they've got their eye on Phil Dawson or Sam Vestey, a Rob Baxter, someone like that,

8:18they can't leave their post, I would say, until the end of that season. So if that's who they got lined up, I understand that theory behind it, because if Dawson Vestey at the end of June, in 27 go, oh, we're going to step away from Northampton and take a short break, like we're, you know, we're rugbyed out, whatever, you can't look at that, and England are about to go to World Cup, you're thinking, well, those two are now about to come in at the end, so I do understand that, my concern is if the autumn goes wrong and nothing's done, six nations, by the time they roll around for World Cup, we've seen it with, with certain nations, we certainly sort of aren't in 2019, they got their tournaments so wrong, yet they had very similar teams, what they had in 2023, like it can go wrong quite quickly, and if they lose the Cohesion because of backing in for so long, it becomes a bit of a dangerous thing. Yeah, there are risks, no matter what you do, and you could say, that there's a risk you change to the coach, and it could get worse, you know, I mean, you could say it gets better, but it could get worse because there are no ready-made, I would say, there's not

9:20many guys who've done international rugby, an international rugby is different than friendship rugby, like guys can turn up at the premiership, but they might not have international experience, and it is different, and like there's no ready-made replacements out there for a short period of time, similarly if there are, they might not want the job, you know, they might have had these quite conversations in the background, so there's a lot behind the scenes that you don't know, and I don't know, and you don't know, and no one knows what's going on in the RFU, and you know, when you talk about you can make changes, Eddie Jones got sacked after the autumn pre-welcome 23 didn't he? Steve came in pre, the Six Nations was pretty bad, we got having in a couple of games, like I was there, we got losters like France Heavily, lost Scotland at home, but then we had a quite good world cup, so you know what I mean, you can say that you could bring, you could keep the staff in it, go badly, in the autumn of the Six Nations, you could change the staff in it, go badly in the autumn of the Six Nations, and the welcome would be a difference, it's there's so many different variables, and we've seen England traditionally at World Cups, with they have a lead in time, you have three, four months together, you're a different team at World Cup and competition tournaments than you are in Six Nations, and so again, I'm sure people will be out there saying that I'm defending it blah, blah, blah, blah,

10:25like it's not my job to employ these things, I don't get paid to do that, but I can see why they have done it, in some regards it makes sense, I know people who knows about joint because they don't agree with them, then coaches have to be changed, all that kind of stuff, but the reality of the fact, coaches, isn't going to be changed, we know that since the Six Nations, and the news today about it, it's in the contract, brings that security and allows everyone in that building to focus on the World Cup, which is what we want for a national team, whether you think whoever is in charge, whoever gets the job, it's the right thing or not, you know, if Eddie Jones out contract after 2023, like there was always going to be conversations about his role post-23, you know, and you're kind of waiting on his tournament and be good, it's going to be bad, we don't know, and we had that in 2019, you know, and you're staying, we'll go, you're like 27, 27, 25, but that's the, because we didn't know, yeah, did we, yeah, or did we, we didn't know, and sorry, I'd Steve Hansen, I said in 2015, apologies, his was 2019 as well, but what I'm saying is I think from a point of, it almost makes sense for England rugby in future, as opposed to working in World Cup cycles, it's almost like World Cup plus one cycle, because you know what I mean, you can then let your team,

11:30you can make a decision post-World Cup about what you want to change, rather than pretty World Cup. Here's my theory of things like, I think Connochet has some blinkers on, I do, I think if you look at Connochet and Bill Sweeney, they're responsible of making sure England rugby set up to go and win and be successful. Now, they've on the back of the review, and no one's seen the review, no one even knows who was in the review, they've backed him. Now, if they change him now, or change him before the World Cup, then you'd argue Bill has to go and so does Conno, because they've got it wrong, they've backed him and if it doesn't work out, they're all accountable for making that decision. So actually, I think this reason, they have to go through them all the way through, but it still surprises me that they have extended that. Now, if they don't know potential candidates, because they've got to have it, they've got to be a plan B. Like, there's got to be a plan A, where Steve turns things around, England gets success, they perform, and they put a run together, right? They go to World Cup, and they do really, really well, and everything looks so different this time next year, as we go to the World Cup with, we're sat here going, I think England genuinely got a shot. Right now, I don't see England got a shot, been 12 months time, I hope they have. Now, Steve could have a massive say in

12:33that, and if he does, and the World Cup goes well, well, then you review it and maybe you extend it, but like right now to make that decision, I just don't see that's the right thing. You could extend it or not, like it doesn't mean he's secure post-World Cup. If the World Cup goes bad, coldly sorry, if the World Cup does go bad, I'm assuming there will still be a break clause in that. Yeah, exactly. And it's only for another six, it's only to the end of the season that the World Cup finishes November time. So they even got the six nations, and then you got summer, and if it goes really badly, I'm sure they'll make a change, but those coaches, then we'll get paid out till the summer, and they will have time to find a job. This is, yeah, I'm just speculating here, but pretty well, if your contract finishes after the World Cup final, then during that World Cup lead-up period, you're not focused on the team, it's only human to go, I haven't got a job after this, like you might go asking for a job, well, you might be putting pressure on it, or you might be here in the RFU's going to replace you with this kind of stuff. So it's a distraction. And in terms of focusing on for the English team, like, no matter who's in charge, and this is probably less than going forward, no matter who the next coach is, the same coach is whatever is, you cover them for the World Cup year plus one. So they can focus on the World Cup,

13:37and they're not going into the World Cup, having conversations, or being, you know what I mean, whether it goes badly or not, you can then, the World Cup means the most, you can then make a reflection on how that World Cup has gone on your staff rather than pretty World Cup, having a dead duck walk and I commit somebody that has a bad World Cup. I just think it take the personalities and people out of it, it kind of makes sense. And you talk about the Australian Conor of Shay, like, if England go badly at the World Cup, their probably positions are up for, you know, they're probably looking at those positions as well. So like, you can say they can make a change, they don't want to make a change because they'll lose the jobs, but if it goes badly, they're probably as the jobs, it goes well, they might not. So like, there's so many variables and stuff that you've got to think about and go into it that I try and remove all that from it, and I just look at it kind of makes sense to have your coaches not distracted by life issues, not rugby issues, life issues of, can I pay my bills next, but all that kind of stuff? And you can say, oh, they've been paid loan money on this kind of stuff, but these, no matter how much you have, like people like job security and coaches, you know what I mean? You have a job in November

14:41and it is, there's not jobs on the street, you know what I mean, straight away. So you'd be tamed yourselves up before and so I just think in terms of pure alignment to let whoever is coaching the England team be not distracted and all they focus on as well, cup, it makes sense from that point of view. Well, there we go. Comment below, let us know your thoughts about it and we'll be back later on in the week.