Steve Borthwick admits England have a lot of work to do after Ireland defeat

Borthwick's side came into this year's Championship as one of the favourites to lift the trophy, but have since seen their title hopes shattered following heavy losses against both Scotland and Ireland.

While the defeats themselves will sting, especially given England were on a run of 12 successive wins prior to them, it was also the manner in which they came that will frustrate the head coach no end.

England have conceded a combined 73 points in the losses to Scotland and Ireland, missing a combined 53 tackles in the process, while their attack has also been found wanting with a tally of just 41 points despite recording more entries into the 22 than their opposition and dominating both territory and possession on both occasions.

Around that, ill-discipline has begun creeping back into their game, with England copping one red card and two yellows in the defeats on top of a whopping 22 penalties combined.

The post-mortem facing Borthwick and his wider coaching staff will likely be a big one, especially with the Six Nations now entering a fallow week, and Borthwick has even teased that changes could be made to his overall match-day squad as a result.

"Unfortunately, for two weeks now, we have given ourselves a mountain to climb and given the opposition too many points early in the game, and we've not got scoreboard presence," said the head coach.

"We will be looking closely at that and how I set the team up to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"My job over the next couple of days is to be really clear about that. Look at how I've set the team up over the last 18 months that has led to consistently high-level performance and results, and look at that for the last couple of games, and then decide on what needs to change.

"Two weeks ago, people were talking about us being 12 wins on the bounce and saying all kinds of positive things about this team, and not all of them were true. Right now, after two losses, people will be saying other stuff about this team, and they won't all be true either. The truth will be somewhere in the middle.

"We're a team that's got plenty of work to do, I've always said that, and in the past two weeks has played against two high-quality teams and they've been better than us.

"I've been really clear on objectives for improvement. We'll look very closely at that over the next two days, so that we reconvene with the players and ensure we're specific about what we improve."

Yet again, England also found themselves chasing the game from the onset, as was the case against Scotland as well.

Jack Crowley opened the scoring for the day from the tee, before Jamison Gibson-Park, Rob Baloucoune and Tommy O'Brien hit with three quick-fire tries to put Ireland 22-0 up inside the first 30 minutes. That slow start eventually came back to haunt England, with Ireland winning by a 21-point margin come the full-time whistle.

"If you look at the first 20 minutes, Ireland scored very quickly after periods of time where we were sat on their goal line and unable to score," Borthwick said. "That led to turnovers, which gave Ireland possession and they scored very, very fast from, and the scoreboard ratcheted up quickly against us.

"The team has been very good at games that have been tight, even if we've gone one or two scores down and then been excellent in the second half and always come through to find a way to win. Unfortunately, for two games running now, we've given the opposition too much of a head start, giving ourselves a mountain to climb. We certainly need to address that."

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