“Accidental because of the poor performances under Borthwick at the start of both Six Nations campaigns.”
England didn’t start the six nations this year especially badly. They lost narrowly away to Ireland, who hadn’t lost a 6N match in Dublin since 2021 and hadn’t lost to England in Dublin since 2019. The next week England beat France.
“Murley and Sleightholme got injured during the tournament, would Roebuck have played otherwise”
You’re mistaken; Sleightholme got injured after he was dropped.
“The two Curry brothers started against Ireland and weren’t effective”
i) They played great against Ireland. England didn’t get the win (obvs) but general consensus among most who watched the game was that the Curry brothers were among England’s best players.
ii) What has this got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that Borthwick selected them against Wales by accident?
“Slade was first choice for a long time”
Yes, and then he was dropped. Again, what point are you trying to make? Do you think Borthwick dropped him by accident?
“Neither of your rebuttals really oppose my point of view that he has possibly stumbled onto a winning team by the end of this Six Nations”
I guess if you just preface everything you say with “possibly” then its impossible to ever really disprove your view. Yeah, its possible that his selections were accidental, but there is zero evidence to suggest that this is the case.
“There were newspaper reports after the Scotland game last year regarding a move from the players to change the way England were playing, with the line one prominent back never or barely touched the ball during training. You can look that up and the performances in the Ireland and France games last year also backed up this report.”
I don’t think the performances against Ireland and France backed this up at all. The style of play England tried to implement against Scotland was pretty much the same as they did against Ireland and France, just with a much higher rate of handling errors. The way Ford told it on FTLOR, England always wanted to play that way.
