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Steve Borthwick was just 32 when he boarded a flight to Tokyo for his first coaching job. He was playing for Saracens at the time, and his knees were swollen when he landed in Japan to work alongside Eddie Jones in the Asian Cup.
“He was captaining the Saracens at the time and his knees shot up and swelled up on the plane,” Japan’s talisman Michael Leitch recalled. ‘What caught my attention was his ability to learn the language. He already knew some Japanese words when he showed up: speed up, slow down, jump, left, right.
“We had guys who had been in Japan for 10 years who couldn’t speak one iota and I knew more words than they did after a couple of weeks. Eventually she was able to hold a 10 minute conversation in Japanese. Her comments were almost all in Japanese. She was like a sponge.
Traveling for two weeks straight, long before he had children to think about, Borthwick took charge of the lineout. His attention to detail drew attention to himself.
Japan’s players were smaller, but come the 2015 World Cup, when they beat South Africa, they had the best set piece in the competition.
England head coach Stuart Borthwick reads a wide range of books to inspire his novel ideas.
“There was a reason behind it all,” Leitch said. “The amount of detail was incredible. Little things like the way you lift – I’d correct your thumbs in instead of out to stabilize the jumper. He’d flick through blurry images and catch: “Michael Leitch, your thumbs are out.”
“I was extremely strict about maxing out those micro-abilities and it worked. We were successful.
Borthwick’s early mentors from Preston Grasshoppers, where he played for the Colts, recall a young man with “a brain like a Filofax”. Now 43, he carries a notebook with him at all times, storing memos in a filing system.
After Jones made the England coaching staff in 2015, Borthwick’s family settled in Somerset. The England players regarded his new manager as an innovator. A stepladder became part of the inventory list wherever the team traveled, with the former lock standing on the top step to claim practice shots at the lineout.
“He had us throw soap-soaked balls at targets while wearing boxing gloves,” recalled skipper Dylan Hartley. He was always thinking of ways to test us.
“The toughest test was trying to throw a football covered in dishwashing liquid while wearing boxing pads and balancing on a wobbly ball.”
Borthwick, never seeking the limelight, operated in Jones’ shadow. He’d rather be hunched over his laptop, processing data, than speak at press conferences.
Beneath the surface was a thoughtful man, mindful of others. The father of two boys, Chase, seven, and Hunter, nine, was asked a profound question in 2016: would you want your children to be coached by you? The answer was an unequivocal no and when he joined Leicester in 2020 he was seen as a calming influence.
“My first conversation with Steve was on Face Time,” recalled strength and conditioning coach Aled Walters, one of Borthwick’s first Welford Road dates. He was in Cape Town. What struck me immediately was how self-aware he was.
His attention to detail helped Japan have the best set piece at the 2015 World Cup.
“He said, ‘I need someone who’s going to smile because I don’t smile too much.’ He always gave you license to be yourself.
‘Some people think it’s quite robotic, but it’s far from it. He is a very thoughtful person. If he calls me after hours, say 8:00 pm, the first thing he would do is apologize for disturbing my night.
A keen reader, Borthwick often provided books for players. Do Hard Things is the latest reading from him, aiming to redefine toughness without fake bravado.
Borthwick turns witty for a lineout drill during an England training session
“He gets so many ideas from the variety of things he reads,” Walters said. ‘On the bus I was always reading at full speed. I often opened meetings with analogies or stories. He looked for ways to introduce variation.
‘If I put a sign on the wall saying “Drink This Before You Work Out”, it will ask me how long the effect lasts. When do you take down that sign? One week?
‘He wanted a change to stimulate the players. Maybe it’s about how the food is offered, maybe. If everything is always the same it can get boring. I would change how it is presented, how it is cooked, where it is served, little things.
“Being a rugby player can be like working in a factory sometimes, coming 44 weeks a year, it can get mundane. Things don’t stay new and nice forever. Think deeply about those things.
Borthwick put his degree in economics and politics from the University of Bath to work, and his theories were often backed up by statistics. Kicking yards, discipline and turnovers were key metrics.
“We had these statisticians come down and talk to us about what wins games,” starting flyer Freddie Burns recalled. “Everyone knows that 10 is the magic number in terms of penalty counts, but Steve isn’t just some general coach saying, ‘Okay guys, let’s get it under 10 penalties.
“He told us how we were going to do it: “We played against a great team, we are going to take their knees off, but the important thing is that we came out rolling”. So, we’d practice knee tackling and rolling.’
Burns kicked the winner as Leicester won the Premiership last season. He scored a one-dimensional, kicking victory over Saracens and was the perfect model of Leicester’s strategy.
“We went to the final and he told us: ‘Look, we’re not ashamed to kick the ball, I don’t care if it’s the most boring final ever. If you follow this plan, we’ll be in the game with 15 minutes to go and we’ll have a chance to win it.”
‘The most effective place to take a penalty in football is high in the middle, but people don’t take it because if the goalkeeper stands there and catches it, you look like ***. Statistically, it’s the best place to score.
‘We went into the game tactically knowing what was going to happen. He gave us confidence. You knew tactically that he was right and that it was a powerful place. You felt there was nothing to fear if you executed his game plan. His detachment almost makes you feel invincible.
Having served his sentence for the last decade, Borthwick is now ready for the top job. When he takes his seat at Twickenham, he can be sure he won’t arrive ill-prepared.