Borthwick: We need to build a fortress

STEVE Borthwick has urged his England to pick up the winning habit and turn Twickenham into a fortress once again.

- ADAM HATHAWAY

Virtually all of the 82,000 tickets have been sold for the autumn opener against New Zealand on November 2 and Borthwick wants fans to get some bang for their bucks.

England will arrive at HQ on the back of two narrow defeats in New Zealand tacked onto an agonising defeat to France at the end of the Six Nations and Borthwick wants to shed the plucky loser’s tag.

Defeats for England at Twickenham in their World Cup-winning era were as rare as a Martin Johnson drop-goal back in the day. And Borthwick has rallied his side to start getting over the line in nip and tuck games and turn their corner of south-west London into home sweet home once again.

“Of our last 15 games we’ve had two at Twickenham,” said the head coach. “Seven of our next nine are at Allianz Stadium. And we want to make sure this is a place that our players enjoy playing, that our fans enjoy coming, because they’re seeing an England team performing and an England team winning.

“I praise players for all their efforts, because they’ve done a lot of good things, but there’s been also times where we have lost games as opposed to the opposition winning them. You can accept inexperience, but you have got to learn the lessons fast.