Borthwick defiant despite England’s disciplinary woes

STEVE BORTHWICK has defended his captaincy of the England team despite their woeful disciplinary record since he has been in charge.

In the nine Tests since Borthwick was appointed captain, England have had 13 players sent to the sin-bin and paid heavily for a high penalty count in defeats to Australia, Wales and Ireland.

Martin Johnson’s patience with England’s discipline finally snapped after they conceded 18 penalties and received two more yellow cards in the 14-13 defeat to Ireland at Croke Park.

The manager’s message this week is that England must improve their on-field relationship with referees in the hope of limiting the number of 50-50 calls that go against them.

Borthwick has been criticised for his communication with officials in recent Tests and questions have been asked as to whether he is the best man to lead England.

But in his most recent Powerade blog Borthwick wrote: “We have collective responsibility as a team for our discipline on the field. Why does it continue to happen? I think there is such a great desire to do well and sometimes that can spill over into over-eagerness.” Johnson’s explosion of anger witnessed in the stands when Danny Care was sin-binned against Ireland for a mindless barge on Marcus Horan is understood to have continued into the changing room.

The players were put through tough conditioning sessions last week as punishment, doing 18 repetitions to hammer home the number of penalties England conceded in Ireland.

“Martin Johnson has been forthright with us, he was rightly furious,” Borthwick added.

“The simple truth is yet again we threw away our chance to win a game through our own lack of discipline and the amount of penalties we gave away.

“If we had not had players in the sin bin or conceded so many penalties I genuinely believe we could have come away from Dublin with a win.

Johnson will name the England team to face France today.

Paul Sackey, who suffered a calf injury against Ireland and has not recovered in time, was ruled out last night. He is likely to be replaced in the starting line-up against France by Harlequins’ Ugo Monye or Sale Sharks back Mathew Tait.

Centre Shane Geraghty has been ruled out of the rest of the championships and Gloucester’s Olly Barkley has been called up as his replacement.

Squad player Geraghty broke a bone in his hand playing for his club side London Irish against Wasps on Sunday.