England\u2019s Six Nations defeat by Ireland<\/a> but is now back in contention to face Chiefs. \u201cThere is a chance,\u201d said Dowson, who is expected to keep faith with young Archie McParland as his starting nine. \u201cWe have got to make sure we get the balance right and trust that if Alex does get involved he can do enough minutes to cover us off.\u201d<\/p>\nEngland\u2019s head coach, Steve Borthwick, will also be relieved as he prepares to finalise his squad next Monday for this summer\u2019s Nations Championship fixtures, starting with a trip to Johannesburg to face the Springboks on 4 July. Intense national training camps in the closing weeks of a long season are not hugely popular with clubs still in contention for trophies and Phil Morrow, England\u2019s head of performance, subsequently travelled to Northampton to discuss Mitchell\u2019s injury with Dowson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess there\u2019s always an emotional bit at the start and then we sit down and see what we can do better and whether there\u2019s anything we can learn from it,\u201d said Morrow. \u201cUnfortunately, in all sports injuries happen and it\u2019s frustrating when they do. So I appreciate Phil was frustrated at the time. But I met with him and his medical and strength and conditioning team and we had a good conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Northampton\u2019s captain, George Furbank, meanwhile, has urged his players not to go into their shells as they go in search of Saints\u2019 second Prem crown in three seasons. \u201cWe want to go out and just attack this game,\u201d said Furbank. \u201cOften in finals you can start to play within yourselves and play a bit safe. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re a good team when we do that. So for us it\u2019s about going and expressing ourselves and performing the way that we want to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The England scrum-half Alex Mitchell is in line for an unexpected return to Northampton\u2019s matchday squad for this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-740786","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\/740786","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=740786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}