Eddie Jones’s assessment after his Japan had narrowly lost to Wales last Saturday, with England in waiting a week later at the Allianz Stadium, was blunt and, as ever, dripping with deviousness. “The English don’t react well to unorthodox rugby,” the wily Australian said.

Jones has promised “something a bit different” from his Japan side at Twickenham this weekend. Steve Borthwick, England’s head coach, knows all about that.

If “unorthodox” is Jones’s buzzword, then one need look no further than his relationship with Borthwick, the Australian’s successor as England head coach, and previously his assistant with both Japan and at Twickenham.

In rugby coaching terms, they are the odd couple. Jones is the scheming, charismatic charmer; Borthwick the scholarly, diligent grafter. They are polar opposites and, yet, as far as rugby coaching, they complemented each other wonderfully. That is not to say that Jones was not a driver of fastidious standards, however; and that certainly rubbed off on Borthwick. There are those outside the camp who refer to the England coach as Teddie – tall Eddie.

The state of affairs is that the two are cordial, exchanging the odd message and sharing the occasional coffee – even if Jones has stressed that this week, with the duo going head-to-head on Saturday, neither will take place. But one insider believes they may even be close enough as to occasionally share notes on opposition teams – just not each other’s, of course.

Both parties, certainly, have been on the charm offensive this week. “Over the years, I’ve had two coaches that have really stood out,” Jones wrote in his Daily Mail column. “One is Steve... highly intelligent and organised.”

After last Sunday’s trouncing of Australia, Borthwick said of his former boss: “Eddie is an absolutely outstanding coach. I don’t know who the best rugby coaches in the world would be, but if you’re making a list of great coaches then he’s up towards the top.”

If there were still rumours about bad blood between the pair, with Jones’s 2022 sacking resulting in Borthwick’s promotion to England head coach, then one would not know it. It is a relationship – which once held a veritable air of master and apprentice – that dates back to 2006, when Jones was consulting as a coach for Saracens.

“I remember the first time I met Steve,” Jones wrote. “I was doing some recruitment for Saracens for the following season and I asked those in the know who was the best captain in England. The overwhelming response was: ‘Steve Borthwick at Bath.’

“So, I met him at a hotel somewhere between London and Bath. It was in the days when you could get away with tapping people up!

“Steve arrived with a book as thick as my arm and a long list of questions. About an hour in, I had to stop the meeting. ‘Steve, mate,’ I said. ‘Hang on a minute. I’m supposed to be interviewing you, not the other way round!’ That’s Steve: meticulous, driven and very switched on.”

It would not be until 2012 that the pair reunited. Borthwick was still playing for Saracens when Jones asked the former lock to travel to Japan, where he was in his first stint as the national team coach, and help out. Jones took a punt on a “grateful” Borthwick, who had never formally coached before, and set him on the path to the most desirable job in world rugby.

“At the end of that week in Japan he asked me to come back and join the team again when they were touring Europe that November,” Borthwick said. “I was playing at Saracens and I was very grateful that Mark McCall allowed me to go out and do those things. I remember one phone call when I was in Romania. I rang Mark McCall and asked him: ‘Eddie’s asked me to go to Georgia with the team.’ I was due back at Saracens for training and Mark McCall agreed to give me a few more days off so I could continue to coach. Having that balance with Mark supporting me as a player and Eddie willing to have that compromise of having someone who’s still a player but is assisting the coaching, I feel very grateful to both of them.

“I feel gratitude but I also learnt immense amounts. Eddie is an incredibly talented coach – the way he sees things, the way he sees the game, the way he is on the grass as a coach. For me to be able to see that for so many years first-hand really helped me in the early part of my career. I couldn’t have had a better learning curve.”

Borthwick waxes lyrical about his former mentor, but there will have been moments that the England head coach found testing. During Jones’s tenure as England head coach, where he won a Grand Slam and three Six Nations titles between 2016 and 2022, insiders said that Jones leant on his forwards’ assistant greatly. Many describe the rapport as “intense”, perhaps, even, at times, verging on an uncomfortable level of demand. “Steve was Eddie’s punchbag, at times – and he wore the blows,” another source said.

In these pages, just after Borthwick had succeeded Jones as England head coach, Warren Gatland wrote of one particularly challenging episode in the pair’s relationship. During the 2017 British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand, where Gatland was head coach, Borthwick was essentially doing two jobs.

“On top of his day job [as Lions forwards’ coach], Jones had also asked Steve to review England’s games on their tour of Argentina at the same time, and provide feedback to him despite the 16-hour time difference,” Gatland wrote.

“I remember thinking: ‘Wow, I would never expect that from one of my coaches.’ He ended up working night and day to get all the things that he had to do completed. It was really tough for him, and I felt for him. He ended up doing two jobs on a Lions tour.

“What struck me was the fact that he never uttered a word of complaint, but just got on with it, night after night. It must have been a gruelling experience.”

But it was one Borthwick emerged from. On Saturday, no one will be able to tap into Jones’s psyche better than him. This week, England have trained in a way the coaching staff believe will prepare them mentally for any of Jones’s hi-jinks. “Different scenarios”, “being alive and responsive” and “potential contingency plans” have all been mentioned. England are expecting the unexpected.

And so they should. In August, Jones revealed that he had made his Japanese players watch videos of geese flying in formation. “The head of the flock is like the ball-carrier,” he said. “The ball-carrier is king, and then everyone else has got to follow after that.”

Geese are one thing, but birds of a feather do flock together. While Jones and Borthwick may be very different birds, there is a mutual respect in the nest that has not shown any sign of ceasing.