{"id":92100,"date":"2023-08-27T17:36:26","date_gmt":"2023-08-27T17:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stopsmokingway.com\/?p=92100"},"modified":"2023-08-27T17:36:26","modified_gmt":"2023-08-27T17:36:26","slug":"borthwick-very-happy-with-england-squad-despite-worrying-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stopsmokingway.com\/rugby\/borthwick-very-happy-with-england-squad-despite-worrying-form\/","title":{"rendered":"Borthwick &apos;very happy&apos; with England squad despite  worrying form"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Steve Borthwick insists he&#8217;s &#8216;very happy&#8217; with his England squad despite their worrying pre-World Cup form&#8230; and says he&#8217;s confident they&#8217;ll play &#8216;exceptionally well&#8217; in opener against Argentina<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>England crashed to a shock 30-22 defeat to Fiji at Twickenham on Saturday\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Steve Borthwick&#8217;s side are struggling for form going into the Rugby World Cup<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The head coach though is confident that they will play well in their opener\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Latest Rugby World Cup 2023 news, including fixtures, live scores and results<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Steve Borthwick is confident England will make a positive start to the Rugby World Cup despite their worrying form going into the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>England&#8217;s 30-22 defeat to Fiji was their first ever loss to the Pacific Islanders and the fifth time they have been beaten in their last six outings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It has created cause for concern going into the tournament, which for Borthwick&#8217;s side, gets underway on September 9 against Argentina.<\/p>\n<p>The England head coach though is confident with his squad and the current Red Rose set-up.<\/p>\n<p>He said after their loss to Fiji: &#8216;I&#8217;m very confident in all the people around the team, the players, the coaches, the management.\u00a0 Today&#8217;s not the result or aspects of the performance that we wanted. We are all disappointed by that.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/08\/27\/16\/74771095-12450657-image-a-1_1693151468047.jpg\" height=\"422\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Steve Borthwick is not too concerned about England&#8217;s worrying form ahead of the World Cup<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/08\/27\/16\/74771099-12450657-image-a-2_1693151486852.jpg\" height=\"474\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>England&#8217;s defeat against Fiji was their fifth loss in six games &#8211; and their first ever to the Pacific Islanders<\/p>\n<p>He went on to add: &#8216;We are very clear about what we need to do to move forward over the next two weeks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I think we&#8217;re very clear that there are a couple of areas we need to address in the next two weeks, and we&#8217;ll make sure we&#8217;re ready for Argentina.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;In terms of the players, I&#8217;m very happy with the squad we&#8217;ve got, I think we&#8217;ve got a very talented group of players. The most important thing right now with the group we have, the players, the coaches, the management.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I&#8217;ve been involved with other England teams before that, under pressure and in difficult circumstances, under adversity and some similar challenges to what we&#8217;ve faced in the last few weeks, have come apart.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0&#8216;What I sense is a group that&#8217;s coming even tighter together. We&#8217;re looking forward to France next week and we&#8217;re looking forward to getting into this World Cup.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/08\/27\/16\/74771105-12450657-image-a-3_1693151518794.jpg\" height=\"439\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Owen Farrell and Billy Vunipola watched the defeat from the sidelines amid their suspensions<\/p>\n<p>England are in Group D of the World Cup alongside Argentina, Japan, Chile and Samoa.<\/p>\n<p>Their build-up to the tournament has been affected by the controversy over the bans to captain Owen Farrell and Billy Vunipola.<\/p>\n<p>Fly-half Farrell will sit out his side&#8217;s first two matches against Argentina and Japan, while Vunipola will miss their first match at the competition.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/rugbyunion\/article-12450657\/Steve-Borthwick-happy-England-squad-despite-worrying-pre-World-Cup-form-confident-play-exceptionally-opener-against-Argentina.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Borthwick insists he&#8217;s &#8216;very happy&#8217; with his England squad despite their worrying pre-World Cup form&#8230; and says he&#8217;s confident<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Borthwick &amp;apos;very happy&amp;apos; with England squad despite worrying form - stopsmokingway<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stopsmokingway.com\/rugby\/borthwick-very-happy-with-england-squad-despite-worrying-form\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Borthwick &amp;apos;very happy&amp;apos; with England squad despite worrying form - stopsmokingway\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Steve Borthwick insists he&#8217;s &#8216;very happy&#8217; 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