He arrived at the England coaching set-up as “Super” Kevin Sinfield, a moniker provided by the players at Leicester, owing to their admiration of their defence honcho. Sinfield took his first coaching job in rugby union, in the East Midlands, shoulder-to-shoulder with now England head coach Steve Borthwick, brothers in arms.
So it is fitting that, after being moved to a downgraded role of skills coach until the end of this summer’s tour of New Zealand, the end will come in similar circumstances, alongside Borthwick, the man who started it all.
When the pair swapped Welford Road for Twickenham they were almost seen as a double act. Borthwick the thinker; Sinfield the inspiration. The latter challenged his players to embrace “the apex of pain” in difficult moments, a command made all the more easier in the context of his fund-raising efforts by running ultra-marathons for MND and the loyalty shown to his friend and former team-mate, Rob Burrow, in tragic circumstances.
It was Ellis Genge, himself no shrinking violet, who said that Sinfield “walks the walk”.
From August, however, the double act will be no more. Sinfield will depart his role at Twickenham. The message emanating from Borthwick on Thursday was that it was mutual. Be that as it may, but the head coach’s response to the question of whether he had tried to convince Sinfield to stay was telling. Borthwick did not directly answer it.
Sinfield might not have been pushed from his role, but Borthwick did not give any evidence of busting a gut to keep him, either. Perhaps, that was because the coach is astute enough to know that his lieutenant’s mind had already been made up. Regardless, Sinfield’s new role – overseeing “catch-pass skills with the kickers and goalkickers” – marks somewhat of a fall from grace.
That does not make Sinfield a failure in the sport, however. The title-winning success with Leicester, alongside Borthwick, proves that. But the fact remains that Sinfield’s gift of stirring the emotions did not translate as well to the Test arena – in a short tenure – as it did at club level. He was placed under growing pressure going into the World Cup after England conceded their 30th try of the calendar year, against Fiji, in just nine Tests.
Touching the visceral remains a key part of rugby but, of course, the cerebral cannot be left by the wayside.
That is where Sinfield’s replacement, Felix Jones, comes in. The Irishman is a savant, a towering rugby intellect, widely respected in the game for his knowledge both with and without the ball. Jones has won two World Cups as an assistant to Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber with the Springboks.
This is a man who, like Borthwick, is a rugby encyclopaedia; a rugby mastermind. That is something which, on the union side of the sport, Sinfield was always going to struggle to emulate, given his background in league.
It is worth remembering that Sinfield was a virtual newcomer to the sport at Leicester. In an exclusive interview with Telegraph Sport, Phil Larder – England’s World Cup-winning defence coach and another rugby league convert – revealed how Sinfield came to him for advice on managing a training week in the alternative code, and how union’s phase-play – and the difficulties of defending with a tighthead next to a fly-half, for instance – bamboozled Larder when he was new to the sport.
Sinfield, in essence, was learning on the job, but clearly the intangible qualities that such an assiduous personality provided outweighed any potential drawback in the mind of Borthwick. Regardless, the head coach would have known that appointing Sinfield at Leicester was somewhat of a gamble; he would have known, too, that taking him along to England was even more of one, even if he was the outstanding candidate.
Before the World Cup, England conceded 23 tries in six Tests and in the 2023 Six Nations, they conceded on average 3.6 tries a game. At that time, by anyone’s admission, the defence was not good enough. The spotlight shone on Sinfield and suddenly the scrutiny that was virtually non-existent at Leicester – owing to his success and the club’s lower profile – had accelerated and multiplied.
Sinfield, the union rookie still getting up to speed, was coming unstuck on the biggest stage, with this newspaper reporting that England’s defence in the warm-up match against Fiji, in particular, was “shambolic”.
But England turned things around at the World Cup. Average tries conceded dropped from 3.6 to 1.2; average points from 27 to just over 13. The tackle success improved and the penchant for conceding line-breaks declined. England, and Sinfield, ended as the third-best team in the world – that is what history will remember of Sinfield’s union legacy.
Of course, as Borthwick highlighted on Thursday, this might not be the curtain call for Sinfield’s time in the sport of rugby union. The head coach admitted he did not know what the future – post-July series against New Zealand – held for the 43-year-old, and given his success at Leicester, plus his status as a devout family man and friend, there is every chance that Sinfield might pop up at a union club near you for the start of the 2024-25 season.
That could be another door opening; but for Super Kev, the England one is slowly closing.
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