{"id":238766,"date":"2025-11-02T01:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T01:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/238766\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T01:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T01:25:09","slug":"ben-earl-and-henry-pollock-add-to-case-for-england-backline-inclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/238766\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Earl and Henry Pollock add to case for England backline inclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hybrid players are a bit like concept cars – glitzy, intriguing ideas but, when push comes to shove, coaches have invariably chosen something more reliable and conventional to actually go from A to B.<\/p>\n

Eddie Jones talked up the possibility during his time as England coach. He thought wing Jack Nowell could work as a flanker. He posited that Tom Curry and Sam Underhill might head in the opposite direction and play in the backline.<\/p>\n

But Jones never followed through on the idea. The division between backs and forwards remained. Orthodoxies survived.<\/p>\n

But Jones’ successor Steve Borthwick might be the one to finally take the plunge.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, he flagged Ben Earl and Guy Pepper as midfield options and floated the possibility of deploying fellow back row Henry Pollock as a wing.<\/p>\n

“Maybe, maybe not it will happen this autumn,” he said of a switch to starting centre for Earl.<\/p>\n

“It’s certainly a factor I’m considering. He’s spent so much time training with the backs and you can see his skillset and his pace.”<\/p>\n

If it is going to happen during this run of Tests, then next week against Fiji – rather than against New Zealand or Argentina – would be the obvious opportunity.<\/p>\n

The 25-7 win over Australia<\/a> will further tempt Borthwick to chance his arm.<\/p>\n

In a little over 50 minutes on the pitch, Earl was England’s second-highest metre-maker, racking up 77m and streaking in from distance for the game’s opening try.<\/p>\n

Pollock, who replaced Earl off the bench, made 52m and similarly revelled in broken field, showed superb hands to gather the ball before swerving outside full-back Andrew Kellaway for a try that put England 15-7 ahead.<\/p>\n

The Northampton tyro, now sporting bleach-blond hair, scored twice as a replacement on his England debut against Wales in March and went on to become a British and Irish Lion in the summer.<\/p>\n

“Everybody’s excited when Henry gets on to the pitch because of what he brings, there’s no doubt about that,” Borthwick said.<\/p>\n

“The way he is and the energy he brings \u2013 he’s a ball of energy. I love having that character in the squad.”<\/p>\n

Both Pollock and Earl have a back catalogue of carries – full of pace, as well as power – to be tested full-time behind the scrum.<\/p>\n

Their jackalling threat would only be accentuated in the wide, open spaces. <\/p>\n

Given the defensive differences and positioning complexities, it would still be a grand tactical gamble, however. As Borthwick’s soft launch has shown.<\/p>\n

The England coach is experimenting with Tommy Freeman, more usually a wing, as a starting outside centre. The idea debuted in the Six Nations thrashing of Wales.<\/p>\n

It didn’t always look convincing against the Wallabies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hybrid players are a bit like concept cars – glitzy, intriguing ideas but, when push comes to shove,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-238766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}