Borthwick urges team-mates to show courage
Steve Borthwick feeling the pressure
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Thursday, 27, Nov 2008 09:01
Under-fire England captain Steve Borthwick has urged his team-mates to show some "courage" in their daunting game against New Zealand.
England are currently a team in shambles after suffering defeat against Australia and being destroyed 42-6 by world champions South Africa last weekend.
Borthwick , who has taken the brunt of a lot of criticism and has seen his captaincy come into question, insisted he was "desperate" to win for England and his team were looking forward to facing the mighty All Blacks.
"We are desperate to win games," Borthwick told Sky Sports News. "No one wants to win more than us, the guys that are wearing the shirt. We have talked a lot about patience. We have talked a lot about improvement and talked a lot about the courage to keep sticking with the plan.
"And that is what we are doing. We are working really hard to improve, that is not to get away from the fact that we have a big Test match this weekend that we are clearly focused on.
"We have got a formidable challenge ahead of us with the All Blacks. It is a really exciting one. It is a great game to be involved in and I think every one of the English players is really looking forward to it."
A relatively young and inexperienced England side face a huge task in upsetting the All Blacks who are looking to claim a third consecutive grand slam of wins against the northern hemisphere teams.