England head coach Steve Borthwick has hailed counterpart Gregor Townsend as a “wonderful” coach amid growing pressure on the Scotland coach ahead of the Calcutta Cup.
An opening defeat to Italy heightened the scrutiny on Townsend’s position after a disappointing 2025 for his side, while the Scotland boss has also faced questions over his consultancy role with Red Bull and links with a job at Newcastle.
Townend’s overall record as Scotland head coach is the best of the professional era, winning 55% of his matches since taking charge in 2017, while he has transformed the side’s Calcutta Cup fortunes, losing just twice to England in eight meetings.
The failure to mount a true Six Nations title challenge has left Scottish fans disappointed, though, with some feeling that the former fly half has failed to get the best out of a fine generation of players.
Borthwick, however, issued a staunch defence of his opposite number’s coaching qualities and suggested that Scottish supporters were overly focussed on their head coach’s future.
“I think Gregor Townsend is a wonderful coach. I was told recently that he has the best win record of any Scotland coach in the professional era. Sir Ian McGeechan had two spells and I think Gregor sits above that.
“The way he has coached the attack they have, and the way they move the ball, when they do that, they look terrific.
“I have immense respect for him as a coach and I find it surprising that people are not spending more time talking about Scotland, rather than not supporting their coach. I think he’s a phenomenal coach and they should spend more time supporting him.”
Scotland struggled in wretched conditions in Rome on the opening weekend, but have generally had England’s number in this fixture of late.
Even last year’s win by the hosts at Twickenham saw Finn Russell miss a late conversion with the chance to snatch victory, and Borthwick has underlined to his side the challenge that they will face.
“This team likes to focus on themselves and what we’re aiming to do on the grass on Saturday,” Borthwick said. “They have full respect for the opposition, they’ve studied Scotland and have full respect for their players.
“They are looking forward to the challenge of playing some top quality players. Their backline is virtually a Lions backline from last summer. They’re really excited by that.
“You look at the way Glasgow are playing and how exciting they are. If [Scotland] come and play like that, they are going to really stretch our defence. And our defence was good on Saturday – it’ll need to be perfect this coming Saturday, against that.”
