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Under-pressure captain Steve Borthwick tackled his critics head on and insisted he was doing everything in his power to transform England's fortunes.

Borthwick has led ill-disciplined England to just two victories in nine Tests and his form and leadership have both come under fire during the RBS 6 Nations.

England have received 10 yellow cards and conceded over 60 penalties in their last four games and dropped to their lowest ever ranking of eighth in the world.

Despite those pressures, Borthwick insisted the position of England captain remains his greatest honour and he vowed to continue leading from the front.

The Saracens lock is yet to concede a penalty himself this championship and he said: "I try and influence things in the most positive way I can to help this team's development.

"I am captain of England. It is fantastic. It has its challenges but millions of people want to be in the position I am in. It is a huge honour.

"Being a rugby player you have to be emotionally involved with the team you are in. You emotionally invest.

"I know the view of me as a captain is inextricably linked to the performance of the team and more specifically the results. That is reality.

"I am trying to influence as positively as possible with my actions, my training, working with the coach and how I address the group and individuals."

England manager Martin Johnson insisted he never considered dropping Borthwick to make way for the more physical Wasps lock Simon Shaw ahead of Sunday's clash with France.

Nick Kennedy was the one to miss out and former England captain Lawrence Dallaglio believes he was unfortunate given form would usually be the first criterion of selection.

Dallaglio expects Borthwick's captaincy to fall under England's post-tournament review.

But given England's recent travails, Dallaglio backed Johnson's decision to stick with Borthwick for the visits of France and Scotland over the next fortnight.

"Martin probably feels at this moment in time that changing the captaincy in the middle of the championship would do more harm than good and he is probably right," said Dallaglio.

"I think it has been difficult for him because clearly your captain normally comes from one of the best two or three performers in the team.

"Steve hasn't hit those performance levels yet and so his selection is going to come into question.

"Having been someone who picked captain from the outset and said this is the way I am going to roll, to change it now would be a U-turn, whether he thinks it is right or not.

"There are plenty of people who don't think he's right - but the time to make those decisions will come at the end of the championship.

"The end of the championship will be a time to review lots of things. Clearly the captaincy would be one of them, the structure would be another. Have we got the right structure going forward to be the best team in the world?

"The time to reflect on these things will come after the last game."

Discipline has been the key focus for England throughout their fortnight's preparation to face France.

Last week the squad were put through punishing fitness drills to repetitions of 18 - one for every penalty conceded at Croke Park in order to hammer home the message.

Top referees Wayne Barnes and Andrew Small have both been in camp to lecture the players and highlight where and why they are conceding so many penalties and yellow cards.

England are looking to mirror a self-policing system used in the Clive Woodward era, which involves improved communication with the referee.

When England ruled the world, Woodward considered 10 penalties to be the maximum they could afford to concede.

Scrum-half Matt Dawson would repeat every refereeing instruction. Not only did that help get the message across, it helped show the referee England were doing everything possible to play within the laws.

Dawson even had a "dead" call, which was a blunt instruction for England to stop competing at the breakdown because the ball was lost.

Borthwick agreed England are looking to improve all those areas of communication in order to keep referee Stuart Dickinson on-side this Sunday.

"We have chased too many lost causes at the breakdown," said Borthwick.

"It is one area we can improve upon. Those players on the fringes can communicate what the referee wants to the whole team.

"Let's say there has been an emphasis placed on certain calls to ensure that happens. We have an equivalent to the 'dead' call."

Eurosport