Atkinson told Rugby Union Weekly.<\/a><\/p>\n“I was a fly-half at the time, which didn’t last long because Fin was better than me!<\/p>\n
“I had to learn a few other skills, which pushed me out to 12.<\/p>\n
“We went through the whole system together and I made my Premiership debut and my first Premiership start outside him, which was quite comforting.”<\/p>\n
When Worcester went into administration in autumn 2022, both soon picked up new clubs with Atkinson heading to Gloucester and Smith signed by Northampton.<\/p>\n
Atkinson says their relationship remains strong despite no longer being in the same club dressing room – and it will be something he leans on when they come under pressure in Rome’s Stadio Olimpico.<\/p>\n
“He’s easy to talk to, someone who I know I can ask questions to and pick his brains and also tell each other what our expectations are of each other,” added Atkinson.<\/p>\n
“You need to have those conversations before the game so that in the game you sort of know subconsciously what’s going to happen.<\/p>\n
“Just having that sort of that link and a bit of composure between the two of you is definitely a big thing, so hopefully that gives us a good opportunity.”<\/p>\n
Head coach Steve Borthwick admitted the shared history of his 10 and 12 was a factor in a selection that lacks established Test and club combinations, and added Atkinson has an under-rated all-round game.<\/p>\n
“He is a really good distributor of the ball, he sees space and is able to get the ball to space,” said Borthwick.<\/p>\n
“As well as that, he has that carry threat and his running ability to cover ground is exceptional. He has multiple strengths.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England centre Seb Atkinson says his teenage fly-half hopes were frustrated by Fin Smith, the man he will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-516766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}