Borthwick must put faith in his players

THE change of England captaincy that was discussed in last week's column has become reality with Maro Itoje taking over from Jamie George, and leading the side into the Six Nations.

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While George playing 50 minutes rather than 80 was not a great concern to me, it seems that most coaches want a leader who can play the whole match, and Steve Borthwick now definitely has an 80 minute captain in Itoje.

However, the captaincy switch that the England head coach made in announcing the 36-man squad for the tournament does bring his thinking into question, because it's a dramatic change. In many ways taking the captaincy away from George after only a year is a hands-up "I've got it wrong" moment, which makes you wonder why he did not make Itoje captain in the first place, after Owen Farrell moved to France.

Borthwick strategises and points this England team in the direction in which he wants to play, but my instinct is that the players need to have a greater input, because they are the people putting it all into practice on the pitch.

Another big question about Borthwick's direction of the team that cannot be ducked is whether England's last quarter failings over the past year have been influenced by the head coach's substitution policy? How much impact is it making to key areas of performance in the last 20 minutes - because when it comes to winning and losing at Test level those bench decisions are critical, and have to be the best in your coaching career.

You would hope that Borthwick has learned from his time as a club coach, and at international level with Japan and England, to make those right decisions at the right time to bring a player on who can do something better than the one he is taking off. That definitely did not happen in the autumn, and so critics are right to ask those questions.

Borthwick has also been talking about the big gap between the Premiership and international rugby.