Before the Six Nations started, England head coach Steve Borthwick talked about facing France in Paris on 14 March being a possible title decider.
“We want to be in a position in that game to get what we all want to achieve. We want English fans flooding across the channel to get there and watch that game,” he said.
A repeat of the 2016 Grand Slam in Paris was the goal, with a first title since 2020 also a reasonable outcome.
Instead, back-to-back defeats, with two games left, makes that trip to Paris now very daunting.
Losing to Scotland and Ireland is perhaps not a shock, but the manner of those defeats puts pressure on Borthwick.
England’s 12-game winning streak went up in smoke with a disappointing 31-20 defeat at Murrayfield, before their nine-match winning home run was emphatically ended with Saturday’s dismal 42-21 defeat by Ireland.
“Two weeks ago after 12 wins on the bounce people were saying we were the best team in the world, and now we are all sorts of things. Neither of these are true,” Borthwick told BBC Sport.
“We are on a journey of development that has a lot of growth in it. That England team from today will be a lot better in two weeks’ time.”
It was a nightmare performance at Allianz Stadium, with five tries conceded in one of the worst performances of Borthwick’s tenure, on what was captain Maro Itoje’s 100th cap.
So what went wrong?
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