Steve Borthwick called this a ‘young, developing’ team before the defeat by Australia, but the truth is they are not

The English winter is closing in and at Twickenham the temperature is dropping fast. This week, they didn’t miss the last-minute kick and it didn’t make any difference. This week, Marcus Smith stayed on the pitch and that didn’t fix it either.

England lost, again. The three before it were all to the All Blacks, but this one was to an Australian team who are ninth in the world rankings and had lost five of their past six games coming into this fixture. It happened even though England had a 12-point lead at the end of the first quarter and a two-point lead at the end of the fourth one.