Three Premiership final battles that would have influenced Steve Borthwick

England head coach Steve Borthwick has slowly been piecing together a national squad over the past weeks, having to make do with absent British and Irish Lions players and others who were preparing for various finals.

Now that the domestic season is over, we will be edging closer to what his final squad for England’s tour of the Americas will look like when he names his squad that will prepare to face France XV.

His updated squad will be named on Monday, ahead of the France clash, which will prove to be a telling audition before the final squad is named the following week.

But Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership final between Bath and Leicester Tigers would have provided plenty of food for thought, with many players working their way in and out of his consideration by going directly against their competitors for the white jersey. Here are three battles he would have paid close attention to:

Fixture

Internationals

Argentina

12 - 35

Full-time

England

All Stats and Data

Back three
All six starting back three players at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium are English, and four of them have caps to their name. Ironically, it was the two uncapped players – Tom de Glanville and Will Muir – that shone brightest.

Freddie Steward will likely be named in Borthwick’s squad, while his Leicester wing’s Adam Radwan and Ollie Hassell-Collins have consistently missed out on squads despite their good form across the season, with Hassell-Collins finishing the league as top scorer.

The Tigers trio were outplayed by their opponents, though, but it was the capped member of the Bath trio – Joe Cokanasiga – who had the toughest time with a number of handling errors. England A representative, Muir, meanwhile, was a menace in the kick chase and ran hard down the left flank. But full-back de Glanville, who has neither represented England A nor the senior team, was the pick of the bunch, outplaying the 36-cap Steward.

The Tigers full-back is renowned for his aerial superiority, but he had a rare off-day. The 25-year-old de Glanville, on the other hand, was far more assured under the high ball, frequently threatened when joining the line, and displayed his passing range.

Even with Tommy Freeman and Elliot Daly on the Lions tour, none of this sextet are likely to start for England against Argentina in July – particularly if George Furbank is fit – but the landscape of those on the periphery changed.

Prop
With England’s loosehead and tighthead duo of Ellis Genge and Will Stuart set for the Lions, Bath’s Beno Obano and Leicester’s Joe Heyes went head-to-head in the scrum in what was a handy audition for Borthwick.

What was maybe more encouraging for the England selectors was that both players probably came out in credit.

Heyes got the better of his compatriot in one set-piece battle, but they were largely solid, with the other side of the front-row causing more problems.

In the loose, they both showed what they were capable of. Obano’s carrying provides a lot of momentum for Bath, and in many ways, he can be rewarded with an assist for Thomas du Toit’s opening try with an intelligent line to bust through the Tigers’ defence. Heyes, meanwhile, finished with the second-most tackles for his side, only bettered by Julian Montoya, who played an extra ten minutes.

As it stands, Heyes is the leading candidate to start against the Pumas at tighthead in Stuart’s absence. Fin Baxter will probably expect to start at loosehead in Genge’s stead, but Obano helped his chances in the final.

Scrum-half
The final played out as a battle between two of the scrum-halves who have been battling to play for England over the past year.

While Leicester’s Jack van Poortvliet looked to have established himself as Alex Mitchell’s deputy over the Guinness Six Nations, Bath captain Ben Spencer got the upper hand in the final.

With Mitchell with the Lions, and fellow competitor Harry Randall injured, these two could be England’s two options in the two Tests against Argentina and the one-off match against the USA.

Both boss Johann van Graan even hailed Spencer as “close to the best nine in the world” after the win, after leading his side to a historic treble. Borthwick, however, has not been overly keen on the Bath man in recent seasons, and has overlooked him since the first two matches of the Autumn Nations Series. Has he done enough to change Borthwick’s mind over the past weeks?