Now is the time for Borthwick to make bold selection call – Andy Goode
It may sound odd to some in the wake of England’s momentous win over Ireland, their best performance for five years, but Marcus Smith has to start against France.
I don’t agree with some of the harsh criticism of George Ford’s display on Saturday, he was brilliant ball in hand for the first 25 minutes and his kicking game was off but he did ok, it’s just that Smith stepped it up a level when he came on and was always supposed to be the starter.
Ford was reportedly told he was going to be the third-choice fly-half ahead of the opening game of this Six Nations against Italy but when Marcus got injured he was promoted to the starting role because of his experience and a reluctance to throw Fin Smith in at the deep end.
The Sale Sharks man, who turns 31 on Saturday, has generally been a steady hand on the tiller, although he has gone missing at times as he has had a tendency to do over the years, but his replacement was electric in attack as well as kicking the winning drop goal.
England disrupted Ireland at the breakdown but also presumably set the tone for how they want to play themselves moving forwards with a marked increase in tempo, going from the slowest average ruck speed in the tournament to having 62 percent of their rucks under three seconds.
Off the back of that, they played a lot more heads-up rugby, passed a lot more and kicked significantly less. Smith is a far better game manager than people often give him credit for but utilising that quick ball and finding space is exactly his game.
Steve Borthwick is now picking youngsters like Ollie Lawrence, Tommy Freeman and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso in the backline and the Harlequins man, who has only just turned 25 himself, is definitely the man to get the best out of them.
He has racked up 31 caps already but done so with the shadow of Owen Farrell, and Ford to a lesser extent, looming over him. Now is the time for him to be properly given the keys and entrusted to drive this England team forward.
Some people wrongly pigeonhole him as a flash, luxury No10 but his defence is a lot more solid than he’s given credit for, he’s an 86 percent goal-kicker at international level and I honestly believe his game management is up there with the best in the world.
If England’s forwards can continue to be as effective as they were against what a lot of experts were describing as the best team in the world – not a tag I agreed with given South Africa won the World Cup just a few months ago – then Smith is best-placed to take advantage.
Of course, one swallow doesn’t make a summer and Borthwick’s men now have to prove they can do it time and again, as Ireland have done in recent years, but they’ve shown they have the ability now.
The age profile of the team is good, the youngsters are arguably having the biggest impact and there will clearly be a few more bumps in the road as they continue to grow but they have set the bar and there should be an expectation that they keep hitting those levels.
There was a bit of added fuel last weekend, as the players admitted, because they felt they were written off by the media, the emotion surrounding captain Jamie George and the fact that it was Danny Care’s 100th cap, and they channelled that excellently.
That can’t be used every week but even the sight of Borthwick having a heated word or two with Andy Farrell showed something that we maybe haven’t seen too overtly from England in recent times.
There’s no doubt England’s head coach is passionate about the team and the job he’s doing but he isn’t renowned for showing his emotion or making great speeches and I think the players will have enjoyed seeing that bit of passion and fight from him.
The fight, energy and quality the players showed, together with the overall occasion, finally got the crowd involved as well and the noise and atmosphere at Twickenham was honestly the best I think I’ve ever heard it so maybe they should take Rag’n’Bone Man with them to Lyon this week.
France pose a different problem to Ireland and England should focus on their own game and developing that identity but there’s no doubt they’re going to need to try and get parity at the set piece against a massive pack.
If they get into an arm wrestle against the French, they’ll lose so they need to get the better of the breakdown again and move the ball quickly. They don’t need to tweak too much tactically and the change of fly-half is the only non-injury-enforced personnel alteration I can see happening in the starting XV.
I think everyone is gutted to see Feyi-Waboso ruled out through concussion after the damage he did on his first Test start and I’d like to see another fresh face given a chance in his absence.
It’s highly unlikely it’ll happen obviously given he isn’t currently in the squad but Cadan Murley is a natural-born finisher, scored a hat-trick for England A against Portugal reserves recently and has been doing the business for Harlequins for some time now so he’d be the next cab off the rank for me.
It’s a real shame to see Chandler Cunningham-South out injured too after the impact he’s made off the bench during this tournament and I can see Borthwick maybe going for another second row/back row hybrid in reserve in Alex Coles or going back to Ethan Roots.
I would be opting for someone who can make a similar impact to Cunningham-South though and that is surely Tom Pearson, who has been ripping it up for Northampton Saints and London Irish before that and is much more dangerous in attack.
Ireland are almost certainly going to lift the trophy for a second straight year but regardless of whether England have a chance of winning the title when they kick off on Saturday night, they should be looking to the future and building on their best performance since the 2019 World Cup semi-final.
Marcus Smith would have been leading this new England from Round 1 had it not been for a calf injury, he showed his talent off the bench at the weekend and has all the tools to unleash a young, exciting attack so the No10 jersey has to be his against France.
Comments on RugbyPass
The first concern for this afternoon are wheather forecast…
1 Go to commentsWhy cant I watch Rugby games please?
1 Go to commentsBeautiful shot from Finau, end of story. Gutted for Shaun Stevenson though.
4 Go to commentsThe Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
1 Go to commentsWasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
4 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
4 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
3 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
31 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
4 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusaders , you can keep going.
3 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
31 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
31 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to comments