Steve Borthwick: England head coach reviews narrow Scotland win and reveals plans for strong Six Nations finish

Find your local Greene King and settle in for the 2025 Six Nations!

Steve Borthwick's side triumphed in their second and third round battles of 'Rugby's Greatest Championship', with the armaments of the Allianz Stadium steadily being rebuilt up into the fortress of old. England edged one-point wins past France (26-25) and Scotland (16-15), with newly appointed captain Maro Itoje as yet undefeated when leading England out on home turf.

Whilst the win over France was down to England's last-ditch drive to the try line, as Elliot Daly crossed the whitewash for an emphatic end to the match, the Scotland circumstances were far from in English hands. Scotland wing Duhan van der Merwe powered to the try line in the 78th minute, with the chips stacked against Steve Borthwick's men as they huddled up under the posts.

However, having sliced two previous conversions, Finn Russell's made it a hat-trick of missed kicks from the tee. Borthwick explained his thought process, as the Bath man lined-up the decisive effort, that could have snatched a late win in the Calcutta Cup clash.

"What pleased me is the amount of pressure they put on the kicker. If you look at that, as you all know, penalty goal attempts and conversion attempts, the rate of success drops on conversion attempts. So you want to put that under pressure. The players were clear that if he got it, what our kick strategy would be and if he didn't get it, what our kick strategy would be at kick off. That was the message that came back to us - the players were really clear on what they were going to do."

"Ultimately, you look at last week's game (against France) and how similar that last kick off was to the last kick off against Australia in the Autumn. We changed the strategy, changed the setup, and won the ball, kicked it out, end of the game. That's what we wanted to do, (against) Australia and we didn't, but the boys took that into this one. The nature of this game was completely different to any game we've played most recently."

England's fortunes have altered after an underwhelming 2024, as England succumbed to two hard fought losses to New Zealand on their Summer tour, before the All Blacks completed the hat-trick with a gut-punching Autumn win over England at the Allianz. The pattern continued as Australia and South Africa racked up wins at the home of English Rugby, before Ireland extended England's run of defeats to tier one nations, in the Six Nations opener in Dublin.

"The nature of Test match rugby, is that there were games in the Autumn that could've fallen our way and they didn't. Now the last couple have come our way. What we need to make sure is that we improve so we don't make it quite as tight and tense.

"I don't know about you, but it was certainly pretty tense at the end of the game there, and I think the whole of Allianz Stadium was pretty tense at the end of the game. Whilst it wasn't the prettiest spectacle, it's certainly one for tension. The games at Allianz Stadium have been very good in recent times. Today they showed a lot of composure.

The tide has certainly turned for Borthwick's men, with the momentum rolling into an exciting end to the tournament. Should England win their next two matches against Italy and Wales, and France pick up a win over Ireland, then the odds would shift towards England picking up their first Six Nations title since 2020. Borthwick explained the next steps for his side, who are yet for a trip up to Yorkshire in the second fallow week of the competition.

"We're going to meet in Wednesday in York and speaking to the players there, it's important as we play our games in the south, and we have an opportunity to do a camp in north, like we did in York last year. We'll do an open session on Friday where we'll get thousands of young people at the training session hopefully. We want the players to have a positive impact there. We'll use those two days to debrief this game and then look ahead to the Italy game. That's all we're focused on, the Italy game."

"Most teams we've been playing against have played a lot of phase - France were probably a bit different, but they were kicking long. These guys (Scotland) were kicking short, contestable. What the challenge was today was we expected that before the game, the boys adapted within it, to find a way to get the result and they did that well. From learning, it's been able to recognise within a game what you're able to do and they did that very well."

There has been plenty of plaudits bestowed upon England's bench since the win over France, with Steve Borthwick's own 'bomb squad' having another solid impact in the second half against Scotland.

"I'm really delighted with them. Whilst those two players (Harry Randall and Chandler Cunningham-South) didn't come on in the last game (against France) , they've been a huge part of this team.

"The bench had a huge impact throughout; Jamie George and Elliot Daly came on early in that second half, and Ted Hill came on for the last couple of minutes, and you saw the effort he put in and the amount of ground he covered in those last few minutes, which was important for us.

"We're playing against good teams - look at the stretch of games we played over the last 12 months, the quality of opposition we played against. These have been some tough lessons for our team, but I think the team is growing and evolving, and I think today was a good challenge for them."

We have down the challenge for you today, to name the Team of the Tournament, as voted for by the fans. You have five minutes to piece together this XV of players, who all had stand out performances in last year's Championships.