England’s Rugby World Cup squad could do with harder edge and more experience

Opinion

Rugby Union Correspondent

England appear to remain in ‘flip of the coin’ mode, having omitted both their biggest lock, Jonny Hill, and the best of the untried props in Val Rapava-Ruskin

August 7, 2023 7:55 pm(Updated 8:57 pm)

Head coach Steve Borthwick admitted to a concern over a lack of big-time experience as he announced his England World Cup squad on Monday, with 33 days to go to the big kick-off against Argentina in Marseilles.

Asked about solving problems during matches, Borthwick said: “In an ideal world you’d have players that have won lots of trophies – that’s what you’d want in your squad. Because [those] players have seen it, they’ve seen the toughest circumstances in the biggest games.”

Beyond the Saracens core of Owen Farrell, Jamie George, Billy Vunipola and Maro Itoje, who have won multiple Premiership and European Cups, you are scratching around for Leicester’s and Harlequins’ Premiership title-winners.

A few of the older players, including Ben Youngs, Danny Care and Joe Marler, have won a Grand Slam. But you can see what Borthwick is getting at, when compared to France, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand.

Sheer nastiness

A 2003 World Cup winner confided to i his big worry when he watched the England team file through the tunnel in Wales last Saturday and, apart from Ellis Genge, failed to identify any forward he regarded as properly nasty. “In our day,” he said, “England had several blokes you were frightened of, who you knew would give you a kick or worse.”

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This is nothing to do with reckless punching, and all about convincing your team-mates and crucially the opposition (mean hombres like South Africa’s Eben Etzebeth) that you will not be physically overcome.

Jonny Hill had this doggedness but the Sale lock has not been picked. Itoje fights like hell, but sometimes at the cost of penalties.

Vice-captain Genge has “never give up” written all over his body language; so too the likes of Tom Curry, Lewis Ludlam and Jack Willis. Then there are Leicester’s comparative newbies George Martin and Ollie Chessum, who might be more the silent-assassin types.

But do England’s biggest rivals look across the halfway line and quiver?

Sheer magic

Another subjective quality, and defined by Borthwick as follows: “Every great England team has had players who break the game up – the ability to find space and break the game open, whether that’s [through] their handling skills, distribution, or the pace they bring, or kicking game.”

So you close your eyes and think happy thoughts of Manu Tuilagi and Joe Marchant making line breaks, or of Farrell and Marcus Smith popping players through holes, or Elliot Daly as the epitome of evasion over collision, and Jack Willis blasting breakdowns asunder, Anthony Watson skipping the light fantastic, and George Ford landing creative kicks on the head of a pin.

Above all, maybe, you applaud the selection of the 20-year-old, Henry Arundell, about whom attack coach Richard Wigglesworth said this: “What Henry has got, you can’t teach.”

So, yes, England do have magic up their sleeve. Even so, as Borthwick himself put it: “We need a team with strong foundations to enable us to then have those players. We’re having to fast-track all of that.”

Scrum

“I think ‘happy’ is a word I might not use,” said Tom Harrison, England’s scrum coach, when asked to reflect on the mixed bag of the set-piece in Wales on Saturday. And then you remember the discomfort endured by Dan Cole against South Africa in the 2019 World Cup final, and wonder how he remains one of England’s best three tighthead props, four years on.

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England appear to remain in “flip of the coin” mode, having omitted both their biggest lock, Hill, and the best of the untried props in Val Rapava-Ruskin.

And while former head coach Eddie Jones once wowed to create a dominant England pack, Borthwick said, “you’ve got to have a pack that can combat the power of the opposition against the top teams” – which sounded more like a hope for parity than a promise of dominance. Will Stuart, the Bath tighthead, can make a name for himself here, if he can shore up the England scrum.

Line-out

This was a theatre of nightmares for an experimental England in Wales – so here is the question: do they play the top hooker Jamie George throughout the remaining warm-up Tests with Wales, Ireland and Fiji this month, to hone his partnership with the line-out targets, who may include the dextrous Northampton lock Dave Ribbans and Courtney Lawes as a valuable third jumper? Or keep George safely out of the way, and instead allow the Test rookies Jack Walker and Theo Dan to sink or swim?

A footnote on this: Borthwick is constantly monitoring the fitness of currently unavailable players, including hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie. So Sale’s tried-and-tested No 2 could yet play a part in the World Cup.

After all, the quarter-finals are still more than two months away.