In contrast to his stance on Borthwick, Sweeney was unequivocal in his backing of the talent at the head coach’s disposal, saying the RFU had “absolute confidence” in the players.
“We still think this is an extremely strong squad, and we still think that it’s got the potential and capabilities to do some special things,” he said.
The review into is carried out by an anonymous panel of figures from inside and outside rugby and involves interviews with players and coaches.
Jones has previously described it as “a tough, tough process”, saying that RFU director of performance rugby Conor O’Shea, former British and Irish Lions coach Ian McGeechan and “a couple of [RFU] board members” assessed his performance and set-up while in charge of England.
Sweeney said the anonymity of the current panel was key to ensuring they could deliver their judgement as frankly as possible.
“There’s a lot of noise, and some of it you hear, and you just know it’s inaccurate from the facts, and some of it you hear, and you say, ‘Yeah, OK, that’s one of the topics that we’re discussing in the review’,” Sweeney said.
“But you’ve got to take emotion out of the equation totally and just look at it purely in terms of, what was the performance, what were the issues, why did they arise, and how do we fix it?”
He also believes that conversations around Borthwick’s qualities as a coach are swayed by results on the field, with the same characteristics which were seen as key to a 12-match year-long winning run, now cast in a different light by the dip which has followed immediately after.
“Steve’s calm, he’s considered, he’s analytical, and that’s his persona. That’s his personality,” said Sweeney.
“I can think of some of the coverage around him prior to the Six Nations being extremely positive about that side of his nature, so it gets coloured a lot by what actually happens on the results page.”
