Sawt Falasteen - English rugby chief says no talks with Farrell 'at present'

Sweeney has indicated current England coach Steve Borthwick will be given a July trio of matches in the new Nations Championship to oversee an upturn in the team's fortunes following a woeful Six Nations where the Red Rose brigade finished fifth following four straight defeats.

Should former England coach Borthwick deliver sufficiently good results against world champions South Africa, Fiji and Argentina he will likely see out his contract until the 2027 World Cup in Australia, after which it expires.

Farrell's deal with Ireland also runs out after the World Cup but the ex-England international expects to hold fresh talks with the Irish Rugby Football Union.

Nevertheless, Farrell -- head coach for the British and Irish Lions' victorious tour of Australia last year -- would be among the leading candidates to succeed Borthwick should the England job become vacant.

"He's under contract to the 2027 World Cup," Sweeney said of Farrell during a media briefing. "We're not in a dialogue. We're not in a discussion with him at the present."

Although the RFU have yet to conclude their review of the Six Nations campaign, Sweeney is minded to stick with Borthwick in spite of England's disappointing Six Nations which yielded just one win as they finished fifth.

After seeing off Wales in the opener to extend their unbeaten run to 12 games, they collapsed in dramatic fashion, losing the next four, including a first-ever defeat by Italy.

A stirring display, however, in an agonising 48-46 loss in the final match in Paris against the eventual champions France may have bought Borthwick some time.

"There is a lot of noise out there," Sweeney said.

"You've got to take emotion out of the equation. You 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 them?

"It's about getting back to the way we were playing. Steve talks about playing big. That has been the intention and you saw that against France.

"We still think this is an extremely strong squad that has got the potential and capability to do some really good things."

Y.AlMasri--SF-PST