For England, the time to test theories on turf has arrived.<\/p>\n
Two years out from the Rugby World Cup, with a clutch of youngsters blooded over the summer and free from the pressure of a Six Nations campaign, they face Fiji on Saturday – their weakest opponent of the autumn, according to rankings at least.<\/p>\n
The nights may have drawn in, but it is a weekend for blue-sky thinking and distant horizons.<\/p>\n
Some of the seven changes to their starting XV are enforced. Full-back Freddie Steward is ruled out with a hand injury. Wing Tom Roebuck has tweaked an ankle. Captain Maro Itoje, a fixture in the team for nearly a decade, is on the bench with a rare knock.<\/p>\n
But head coach Steve Borthwick might well have shaken up the selection anyway.<\/p>\n
With eight straight wins buying some breathing space, his priority is competition to push the squad to new heights, rather than continuity.<\/p>\n
The focus is especially sharp at fly-half.<\/p>\n
Fin Smith, Northampton’s wise young head, has got the nod.<\/p>\n
George Ford, who steered the team so assuredly in the summer, is left out. Marcus Smith, the spark at the centre of England’s attack this time last year, is in his unfavoured full-back slot.<\/p>\n
Three into 10 doesn’t go.<\/p>\n
And while Kevin Sinfield spoke of the edge and appetite that chopping and changing has brought to camp, the assistant coach admitted there is frustration and disgruntlement to manage as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For England, the time to test theories on turf has arrived. Two years out from the Rugby World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-250914","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\/250914","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=250914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}