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So much for cohesion and continuity. The thought was that England would keep consistency in selection for Fiji to continue to build momentum into a campaign-defining encounter with the All Blacks; instead, it is a new look line-up fashioned, in part, out of necessity for their second fixture of November.
Of course, Steve Borthwick would have liked to start captain Maro Itoje, wing Tom Roebuck and perhaps full-back Freddie Steward, too. But selection is seldom that simple, and so it has proved again. Injuries ruled all three out of at least a portion of this week’s training – while Itoje remains on the bench, and as a co-captain, Roebuck and Steward sit out entirely with the former in a race to be fit for New Zealand. The impact on the backline is significant: Tommy Freeman had been expected to continue his centre development but is shifted back to the wing to replace Roebuck’s size and spring, while the selection of Marcus Smith at full-back is indicative of a slight shift in strategy.
Indeed, while Steward’s injury made a switch more straightforward it may have been that England were plotting to unleash twin playmakers against Fiji regardless. While the Harlequin has been at pains to express his preference for fly half, he is, it was emphasised again this week, a top team man, and Borthwick and his staff enjoy the options he presents at No 15. Assistant coach Kevin Sinfield also noted, perhaps pointedly, that it was that versatility that helped earned Smith a trip to Australia with the British and Irish Lions earlier in the year; while the 26-year-old would obviously prefer to be strutting his stuff in a more central role his gifts on the periphery of the pitch are nonetheless an excellent option.
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Fin Smith will be on the bench for England (PA Wire)
“I think that Fin Smith and Marcus were champing at the bit for the opportunity,” Borthwick explained. “I think you see a team that will want to move the ball. I think you see again we’ve got pace and power on the edges.
“I’m really hopeful there that we’ll see Marcus in space in unstructured opportunities, which I think everybody in the stadium is going to be excited when that ball comes into Marcus’s hand in a bit of space. Last week we had some of those opportunities, the players had a great attitude in some difficult conditions to go and take those opportunities in unstructured situations. Unfortunately, we didn’t convert them. Part of what we’ve been working on this week as well is converting those opportunities.”
The pairing of Smiths in tandem, with George Ford reverting to the wider squad role he fulfilled with aplomb during the Six Nations, underscores England’s depth at No 10. It helps, too, that they are playing a Fijian side less developed as a contestable kicking threat; the visitors have many multitudinous threats right across the park but their capacity to challenge England’s full-back aerially sits below that of other sides. He has begun there before against the Pacific Islanders, of course, with his bloodied lip emblematic of the bravery England needed to overcome a tough encounter in the quarter-finals of the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
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Marcus Smith started against Fiji in the quarter-finals of the 2023 Rugby World Cup (Getty Images)
Yet Smith’s selection also offered Borthwick an opportunity to make a wider point about the collective buy-in and competitiveness within the England squad. His freshening up of the team, which also includes a start at No 8 for Chandler Cunningham-South, displays the options he can now work with – and while keeping all players happy is an impossibility, the head coach believes the togetherness building within the group stands apart from previous environments.
“Last week, there was a break [Marcus Smith] created from a little grubber kick from his own try-line, which I’ve seen very few people ever able to do,” Borthwick hailed. “The guys then went and took it and Sladey was involved and Cadan Murley finished it. When you’ve got players not selected in the 23 training like that, it’s a good sign of where the squad is at.
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Marcus Smith would prefer to play fly half but will take his chances at full-back (Getty Images)
“That was the same again today, I thought they trained brilliantly. That’s not always been the case in the England environment, when I was playing, where if you weren’t selected, the team was not the most important thing. That’s certainly what we’re pushing: the team is always the most important thing.”
It is Sinfield who takes a lead on managing the players not included in the 23, while managing the mentality of those named as replacements has also become increasingly key for top international coaches as they work to weaponise their bench. To that end, Borthwick has used the example of Tom Curry, again out of the starting side, as a shining example of the sort of attitude he wants his team to show. The head coach pulled up two clips of the flanker from the Australia game – one being his levelling of Tane Edmed in the 73rd minute – to show his squadmates this week; he may be on the bench again but Curry remains Borthwick’s shining example of what it takes to be a top Test operator.
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Tom Curry has been held up as a standard-setter in England’s squad (Action Images via Reuters)
The other message Borthwick underlined was how fine the margins are at the elite level. To illustrate his point, he used an image of Toronto Blue Jays player Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who came up a matter of inches short of what would have been the winning run in Game Seven of the World Series.
“In the recent World Series, there was an opportunity for the Blue Jays but they were that far short. I got that photo and showed that to the players and started talking about fine margins, the little moments off the ball. When you get to the very, very elite levels of sport it is tiny margins.
“What was that 10cm? That player had tried his heart out and 10cm, that is the nature of it. That is what makes sport so brilliant. Everyone is so invested in it and you have these moments of pure elation, pure euphoria and you have these moments of absolute heartbreak