England’s senior players have furiously denied accusations that Steve Borthwick presides over a “toxic environment” as they offered their full support to the under-fire head coach.

Bill Sweeney, the Rugby Football Union chief executive, earlier this week offered his unequivocal support of Borthwick, whose position had come under scrutiny after England slumped to their worst Six Nations finish. An article in The Times also alleged that England’s senior players wanted to hold a crisis meeting in Argentina over Borthwick’s management style, but it was deferred to a virtual meeting following the tour.

Borthwick only went so far as to say that he did not recognise the article as “an accurate description of the environment”, so it was left to his players to come out fighting for their embattled coach ahead of a crunch Nations Championship match against Australia on Sunday.

“It wasn’t a straightforward journey for us in the summer, that’s for sure,” Jamie George, the vice-captain, said. “But equally to be said that there was a toxic environment and a negative environment, that’s just not true, hand on heart. I hope you know that I have never stood up and lied to you. There is no way that is true and I was captain of the tour. I can say as a matter of fact that is not the case and therefore leading into the weekend, we cannot wait to represent Steve in the most positive way because we’re going to show how much we care about him.

“I don’t like the narrative it has created and the response from the group has been a rallying one because we all feel the same way. There are some people who are really angry about this article because it feels like an attack on Steve. It is just unwarranted. He’s been hurt by the article.”

The news overshadowed Borthwick’s team announcement for the game against the Wallabies, in which prop Fin Baxter, flanker Ben Curry and full-back George Furbank will make their first Test appearances of 2026. Henry Pollock, meanwhile, will provide cover for the wings as part of a six-two split on the bench, while Borthwick confirmed that Tom Curry has suffered a recurrence of his debilitating hip injury.

‘When someone comes at one of our own, we fight to protect them’

England’s player leadership group discussed the accusations in the article on Thursday night before the whole squad met on Friday morning to circle the wagons around Borthwick, which George believes will bring the team closer together. “We just called a very quick team meeting,” George said. “Maro [Itoje] spoke brilliantly about the fact that some people might not have read it, or might not have heard about it; he gave a brief synopsis about what had been written and then we opened up to the floor.

“George Ford spoke unbelievably well about what I’ve said already and there is a unanimous feeling that we are behind Steve in every way, shape and form and the only thing that this is going to do, unfortunately for whoever has written this article, is make us tighter. Clearly the purpose of this article is to try and divide the team. It’s galvanising, 100 per cent. We are tight already, which that article doesn’t suggest. We are incredibly tight already. But when someone comes at one of our own, we are going to fight to protect them.”

Those sentiments were echoed by captain Itoje, who was absent for the summer’s Nations Championship campaign after being rested by Borthwick. “The framing of it I think is wrong and I don’t think is correct. I can wholeheartedly say Steve has not lost the faith of us players,” Itoje said. “We back him 100 per cent alongside all the other coaches. I can say when that message came out, I told him the team are 100 per cent behind him.”

George did not deny that a virtual meeting took place between Borthwick and his senior players, but says that is standard practice following tours and denied there was a mutinous mood. “We have a lot of meetings, to review, to learn what we did well, not so well, in order for us to be the best possible team that we can be,” George said. “At no stage was anything personal, at no stage did anything kick off, it’s just not what happened.”