{"id":452904,"date":"2026-03-02T02:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T02:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/452904\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T02:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T02:08:08","slug":"steve-borthwick-suffers-second-major-injury-blow-as-england-squad-updated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/452904\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Borthwick suffers second major injury blow as England squad updated"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Steve Borthwick will once again be without Bath<\/a> centre Ollie Lawrence<\/a> after the RFU issued a squad update on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

Lawrence is listed as having been sent back to Bath for rehabilitation, despite having only just returned to the England<\/a> set-up following injury. The former Worcester<\/a> centre was a doubt for the trip to the Stadio Olimpico after receiving a knee injection during the week.<\/p>\n

Curiously, there is no call-up for Bath teammate Max Ojomoh.<\/p>\n

Ojomoh was handed his third start at fly-half this season as Bath hosted Gloucester<\/a> in the PREM Cup over the weekend. The natural centre previously featured at 10 in wins over Harlequins<\/a> and Sale<\/a> Sharks.<\/p>\n

Seb Atkinson, who played 50 minutes for Gloucester in the PREM Cup at the RFU\u2019s behest this weekend, could be in the race to replace Lawrence. One of Tommy Freeman<\/a> or Henry Slade<\/a> could also fill the role.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the week, it was confirmed that scrum-half Alex Mitchell<\/a> would miss the remainder of the Guinness Six Nations<\/a> after suffering a hamstring injury in the same game.<\/p>\n

Mitchell was forced off after 24 minutes. Jack van Poortvliet, who came on for him against Ireland, is in line to start in Rome, while Raffi Quirke<\/a> has been drafted into the squad as cover.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlex has been scanned and seen the relevant specialists,\u201d Borthwick said. \u201cHe\u2019ll be out for a number of weeks, unfortunately, so won\u2019t feature in the remainder of this championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forwards:
Ollie Chessum (Leicester<\/a> Tigers)
Arthur Clark (Gloucester Rugby)
Alex Coles (Northampton<\/a> Saints)
Luke Cowan-Dickie (Sale Sharks)
Chandler Cunningham-South (Harlequins)
Tom Curry (Sale Sharks)
Theo Dan (Saracens)
Trevor Davison (Northampton Saints)
Ben Earl (Saracens)
Ellis Genge (Bristol<\/a> Bears)
Jamie George (Saracens)
Joe Heyes (Leicester Tigers)
Maro Itoje (Saracens)
Jack Kenningham (Harlequins)
Emmanuel Iyogun (Northampton Saints)
George Kloska (Bristol Bears)
Guy Pepper (Bath Rugby)
Henry Pollock (Northampton Saints)
Bevan Rodd (Sale Sharks)
Sam Underhill (Bath Rugby)<\/p>\n

Backs:
Henry Arundell (Bath Rugby)
Seb Atkinson (Gloucester Rugby)
Elliot Daly (Saracens)
Fraser Dingwall (Northampton Saints)
George Ford (Sale Sharks)
Tommy Freeman (Northampton Saints)
George Furbank (Northampton Saints)
Cadan Murley (Harlequins)
Raffi Quirke (Sale Sharks)
Tom Roebuck (Sale Sharks)
Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs)
Marcus Smith (Harlequins)
Fin Smith (Northampton Saints)
Ben Spencer (Bath Rugby)
Freddie Steward (Leicester Tigers)
Jack van Poortvliet (Leicester Tigers)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Borthwick will once again be without Bath centre Ollie Lawrence after the RFU issued a squad update…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-452904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452904","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=452904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}