England Six Nations team announcement LIVE: Fin Smith starts in new England backline

A backline gutted – but is it justified?published at 15:08 GMT

15:08 GMT

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Mike Henson
BBC Sport

Steve Borthwick is a more funky selector than he is often given credit for.

He has switched between three fly-halves in little more than a year, brought both wingers and flankers into the centres, and has shuttled between various back-three configurations, building an arsenal of different options.

However, completely gutting the backline – even with some of the changes forced upon him – would be his most radical call yet.

Cohesion, often a buzzword last year, has been abandoned for new faces and untested combinations. Seb Atkinson and Tommy Freeman have not played a minute of rugby together as a centre partnership.

A home loss to Harlequins back in February 2022 was the only occasion that Atkinson and Fin Smith started a frontline game for Worcester’s first team together, before heading their separate ways.

So, is it justified? England’s performances in the past two Six Nations games – which lacked both tactical agility and basic accuracy – were nearly unrecognisable from the team that had amassed 12 successive wins in their previous dozen games.