Six Nations: England are sticking together, not cracking up

Wing Tom Roebuck denies that England's squad unity is fracturing under the pressure of successive losses against Scotland, Ireland and Italy, and the subsequent scrutiny.

Saturday's defeat by Italy, a first in 33 Test meetings between the teams, has left England on the brink of the worst Six Nations campaign in their history.

An argument between captain Maro Itoje and Fin Smith over whether to kick for goal or to the corner from a second-half penalty was picked up on the referee's microphone, with Itoje tetchily telling his fly-half "don't argue with me, take the three".

In the wake of the defeat, the Rugby Football Union released a statement backing head coach Steve Borthwick, while admitting results had been "hugely disappointing" and insisting it would attempt to "understand and rectify" the reasons behind their underwhelming campaign.

Sam Warburton told BBC Rugby Special that he thinks there is more to England's nose-diving form than is apparent from outside.

"Something is going on, I think, behind closed doors," said the former Wales and British and Irish Lions captain.

"We can only guess what's going on, but that is not a camp which is all on the same page who know what they are doing. It is very disjointed."

Roebuck insists however that the players remain united.

"We had a conversation on the pitch [after the Italy defeat], just the players, about making sure that we stay tight," he told Rugby Union Weekly.

"We've got to stay together, and we've got to make sure that it's us as players who puts things right.

"We get clear messages [from the coaches] every week. We may tweak little bits, depending on the team we play, but as a whole, we know the gameplan that we want to go out and implement.

"We're 100% behind that."

Roebuck, 25, believes the team spirit built up over a year-long 12-match winning run that ended three weeks ago at Murrayfield will now help England climb out of their slump.

"I think the more tight you are, the more honest conversations you can have," he added.

"When you are that tight, you almost know that it's not meant in a malicious way or a bad way.

"When you have those honest conversations, they come from a place of love, which is always a good thing, and you can really understand each other better."

England's faltering attack has been a focus of attention.

In every match of this season's tournament they have been markedly less efficient at converting prime attacking positions into points than 12 months ago.

Highly rated Bath attack coach Lee Blackett was appointed to the England set-up in September after a successful secondment on the summer tour of Argentina and the United States.

Scrum-half Ben Spencer, who worked under him at Bath, insists Blackett is operating as he did at club level.

"He's definitely been himself," said Spencer.

"He's a great guy, he's brilliant around the lads and he's one of those guys who really gets the best out of people.

"He's always speaking really positively around the group about scoring four tries in every game that we play.

"So in terms of that, I've definitely seen the same side of Lee that we saw at Bath.

"We're all in this together, coaches, players, we're going through a tough time at the minute. We had a great 2025 and that's where we want to get back to and the only way we're going to do it is together."

Spencer says the faith is mutual, with the coaches giving the players freedom to go off-script and ignore a gameplan in which contestable high balls are a key way of moving up the pitch, if they see another opportunity.

"We're absolutely given the licence," said Spencer, who kicked the ball 14 times out of hand, the most of any player, in the defeat by Italy.

"It's something that Lee talks about and Steve talks about in terms of playing what we see.

"So yeah, in terms of going away from plan, it's not an issue."

Click here to read article