Key events
Preamble
So we reach the final chapter of England’s current season of mists and mellow fruitlessness. An Autumn of testing themselves against the best of the southern hemisphere – plus Australia – and coming up short. Cue many pained dissections and death notices about the state of the game its birthplace, all of which are overstated.
Steve Borthwick’s team have had a tough little run of fixtures and have lost them narrowly, the team is broadly settled, the attacking gameplan is maturing and a new defensive system is bedding in. They should have won against Australia, probably, but this is no reason to go into full meltdown. Things are broadly fine and will continue to be so.
That said, it is helpful that they can sign-off this run of matches playing Japan at home with the clear probability of a comfortable win this brings; hence Borthwick has gone with a fully loaded squad for the match. But a decent and convincing win it must be against the returning Eddie Jones’s charges. A creaking November victory over the Brave Blossoms in 2018 during Jones’s England tenure increased the mutterings about his suitability for the job and England’s current man in charge will be keen to avoid yet another “explain yourself!” post-match interview to head into the long winter gap prior to the Six Nations.
