The Breakdown | England need to unearth World Cup core despite derby friction and injury chaos

Nations Championship games against Australia and Japan should be the end of experimentation for Steve Borthwick

Even on the most serene days no one would describe coaching England as a relaxing gig. With his side’s opening November Test looming on Sunday week, Steve Borthwick is already faced with assorted injury-related complications at precisely the moment he needs to start finding lasting answers to a range of fundamental selection questions.

The untimely training field absence of Fin Smith, pencilled in to be England’s starting No 10, is a prime example. With the two leading midfield candidates to face Australia – Seb Atkinson and Bernhard Janse van Rensburg – also unable to train this week, Smith’s calf injury has materialised at the worst possible moment. Add the Bath flanker Guy Pepper, who limped off against Gloucester last Friday, and suddenly there is a hint of pre-Halloween gloom hanging over England’s preparations.

There is also the bigger picture. At various times, Borthwick has been urged to base his selections around dominant club sides in Northampton, Bath and Saracens. How unfortunate, then, that all three went down in a sodden, windblown heap at the weekend. Nor does it help that the two most effervescent England‑qualified back-rowers this season, Jack and Tom Willis, ply their trade in France and are ineligible.

On top of everything else, there is the small matter of Borthwick being required to manage the increasing number of squad members itching to punch Henry Pollock’s lights out. To say Ollie Chessum and the other Leicester players who squared up to the Saints back‑rower during the East Midlands derby on Saturday were unhappy with their England “buddy” would be putting it mildly. Competitive tension is an inevitable part of the game, but, from Borthwick’s perspective, a “them and us” split within the national squad would be ruinous.

Because, in the end, there is only one overarching question that matters: how can England win the World Cup next year? The debate then becomes less about week-to-week contingencies and necessitates some longsighted vision. This next month is effectively Borthwick’s last chance to identify his preferred combinations before the World Cup and that opportunity absolutely cannot be wasted.

Nor can England afford a repeat of the turmoil that compromised their plans before the last World Cup. In the semi-final against South Africa, there were a mere seven surviving starters – Freddie Steward, Jonny May, Manu Tuilagi, Owen Farrell, Jamie George, Maro Itoje and Tom Curry – and 10 of the matchday 23 from Eddie Jones’s last hurrah as head coach against the Boks less than a year earlier. Given the circumstances, England did well to scramble as far as they did.

Compare that with England’s World Cup-winning squad in 2003 when only two players – Josh Lewsey and Trevor Woodman – were not involved in a thrilling victory against the Wallabies at Twickenham 11 months previously. While there was movement on the bench, where injuries played their part, 17 of Sir Clive Woodward’s 22-man squad from November 2002 featured at the World Cup.

Hence why this autumn matters so much in terms of nailing down certain positions. There has been some judicious filleting with Theo Dan, Ben Spencer, Ollie Lawrence and Elliot Daly nowhere to be seen. Charlie Ewels, similarly, finds himself on the outer. Kepu Tuipulotu, Noah Caluori and Arthur Clark have earned the nod, with Cadan Murley and Ben Curry seeing off the respective challenges of the unlucky George Hendy and Fitz Harding.

Tom Pearson, similarly, has profited from the injury to Chandler Cunningham‑South and Borthwick’s reluctance, for now, to summon Max Hicks, Courtney Lawes, Hoskins Sotutu, Ethan Roots or Jack Clement, among others. The Bracken brothers, Jack and Charlie, must be close too. At least there is an A international to encourage the aforementioned, but, equally, those not required in Bagshot this week now know something truly special is required.

Borthwick has to settle, as a matter or urgency, on who should wear six, seven, eight, nine, 12 and 13 this time next year – not guys who might conceivably have the highest ceiling at some unspecified future date, but individuals capable of turbocharging an England side that, lest we forget, have lost five of their past seven Tests.

With any luck, then, Borthwick is not just thinking about the Australia game in isolation, but the opening two weekends as a package. If all 36 players in training this week have some involvement against Australia and Japan it would also help to separate the wheat from the chaff: the management then can identify a 23-man squad to face New Zealand that, ideally, mirrors the one that will kick off the knockout stages of the World Cup less than 12 months from now.

Admittedly, that strategy becomes harder if Smith, Atkinson, Janse Van Rensburg and Pepper are unavailable. On the other hand, Marcus Smith is back in form while Sale’s Joe Marchant, if required, has plenty of experience. Alternatively, Gloucester’s fleet-footed Will Joseph could just prove the answer to England’s endless midfield conundrum; a partnership with his clubmate Atkinson would certainly work in terms of cohesion, pace and balance.

Anyone who has watched Northampton attack will also be eager to see the alert Archie McParland in an England No 9 shirt sooner rather than later. Then, suddenly, with Itoje, Chessum, George Martin and Alex Coles all scrapping for a start at lock and Pollock, Ben Earl, Tom Curry and Greg Fisilau vying for back-row prominence, England could be in clover. The time for experimentation, however, is almost over.

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