England will name their squad on Sunday for the Nations Championship, with Australia, Japan and New Zealand at Twickenham in November and a finals weekend to follow.
For the first time in a long while, the question isn’t whether the players are there but whether the selection starts in the right place.
The top line
Test rugby is won up front, and make no mistake, this is the first England squad in years with the forwards to win it against anybody. A front row of Ellis Genge, Jamie George and Joe Heyes matches any in the world bar South Africa’s, and against South Africa it hangs on and does a job.
George Martin and Ollie Chessum behind them bring a second row with the power to carry and the height to run a lineout that is already the best England have had since 2019. And a back row of Courtney Lawes, Tom Curry and Ben Earl combines the grizzle of two men who have been in the room for a decade with the one genuine sprinter England have ever produced at eight.
Put bluntly, the cattle are there. What matters is whether Borthwick understands that the attacking game the PREM has been playing all autumn – the pace on the ball, the width, the Northampton and Bath and Gloucester way – only comes out once the collisions are won, and that the side which takes every opponent on up front is the one that gets to play like that in the last 20 minutes.
The French call it earning the right. England have the pack to earn it against Australia, Japan and New Zealand, and the bench to keep earning it after 50, and that is why there is a lot to be excited about.
Win the collision, then play
Here’s the thing about the PREM this season: it’s the most attacking league in the world by a distance, but Test rugby only builds that attack on a pack that’s won the gainline first.
Gloucester drew with European champions Bordeaux at Kingsholm last Friday because Jack Clement carried 18 times for 108 metres and Tom Willis couldn’t get through them; Northampton beat Cardiff because Danilo Fischetti made five dominant tackles and the scrum gave the Welsh nothing. The running game is the reward, not the plan.
England’s plan should be the same, and the pack they have got is built for it. Genge and Heyes scrummage. George runs a lineout that, with Chessum, Martin and Lawes to throw to, is as close to a guaranteed platform as Test rugby offers. Martin and Chessum carry. Curry tackles everything that moves and some things that don’t, whilst Earl is the man who turns a won collision into 30 metres before the defence has reset.
That’s a side that can win the breakdown with fewer bodies, which is the point: the way England want to play relies on a low-ruck game, few phases between their own half and the line, strike off set-piece and turnover.
The fewer rucks you build, the more men you have standing up to carry and tackle. Win the collision and you don’t need the long phase count. Lose it and you’re Exeter at Toulouse, holding the ball for 94 rucks and losing by three.
Grizzle and gas
The thing that separates this pack from the ones of three years ago is that the grizzle and gas are in the same unit. Lawes and Curry have the scars; Martin and Chessum have the power; Earl has the pace, and pace from eight is the thing New Zealand and South Africa have had for a decade and England haven’t.
Lawes is the call that will get the most attention and it should get the least argument. He has climbed back to form a week at a time this autumn, and nobody else in England offers the blend he does: the experience, the lineout, the threat over the ball and the sheer leadership of a man who has captained the side and been in the room for everything from 2012 to 2023.
It’s a short-term thing, everybody knows that given he is now 37 years old, but you cannot leave a player of that magnitude out of any side if he is hitting the levels, and he is. He goes hard on those elderly legs for 50 minutes, with Coles and Itoje as the insurance behind him.
That’s a better use of three giant-sized men than any other combination on the sheet. It’s without question that Big Courts is one of England’s three or four greatest flankers, and he is available.
Fuse that with the PREM way, Alex Mitchell’s tempo at nine and Fin Smith’s calm at 10, and the backline gets the ball on the front foot rather than the back, which is the whole difference between the England of the last two autumns and the one that could win this.
The selection calls behind the pack are about pace, too. Henry Slade might not be the fastest man on the park anymore, and the case for Max Ojomoh in the centres is a real one.
But there is also a case for backing experience and Slade’s return to form, and Borthwick will make it one way or the other; the piece of cotton wool in the squad is Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, whose electric running on the wing is the one thing England can’t replace and who needs wrapping accordingly.
Tommy Freeman on the other wing and George Furbank at full-back give the side three men who can finish from 40 metres, and Benhard Janse van Rensburg, if fit, gives it a 12 who carries like a forward.
That’s a real if: a source close to the England camp confirmed to Planet Rugby that Janse van Rensburg remains a question mark over his fitness and his concussions, and that he’ll be assessed in the lead-up to the squad announcement.
The pressure from elsewhere is real, mind. Seb Atkinson is still very much in contention at centre, indeed the man in possession; James Pater has emerged at Saints as a full-back candidate alongside George Hendy, and a try, a conversion and an intercept on his European debut on Sunday did his case no harm.
And don’t rule out Fraser Dingwall, whose partnership with Smith is critical to Northampton and has proved outstanding for England, even though he is more of an enabler than a line-breaker himself. He reads the game brilliantly, and sides that play the Toulouse way need a 12 who does.
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23-man game
Rugby is now a 23-man game, and this is where England have gone from hopeful to dangerous. Being able to bring on Will Stuart at tighthead, Coles in the second row and Itoje behind them at 50 minutes is something England have only ever dreamed of; that’s a second front row and second row combination that would start for most Test sides, arriving against tiring opponents with the game to be decided.
Luke Cowan-Dickie at hooker, Guy Pepper in the back row, Ben Spencer at nine and either Marcus Smith or Ojomoh for the backline make it a bench that changes the shape of a Test rather than merely surviving it.
If Sam Underhill is fit, he swaps with Pepper on the bench because there is no better defensive flanker in the country when his ankle’s holding.
The one man England would like to squeeze in, fitness permitting, is Tom Pearson at seven, who offers a point of difference in his support play that none of the other opensides has, and don’t be surprised to see Will Trenholm, two tries in four minutes off the bench against Bordeaux on Friday, or Bath’s Arthur Green in the frame at eight.
Loosehead cover is the one hole. Bevan Rodd, who would be the pick, had scaphoid surgery at the end of September, his third operation in 13 months after the shoulder that cost him the summer, and Alex Sanderson’s eight-to-12-week prognosis takes him past the New Zealand game at best.
So the bench options behind Genge are Fin Baxter, if his foot has recovered from the second operation in May, or Beno Obano, with Asher Opoku-Fordjour up there too because he can scrummage on both sides, even though Sale play him almost entirely at tighthead.
It’s the thinnest line on the sheet. Everywhere else the bench is as strong as the starting side, which is the mark of a squad that can go deep into a tournament.
Where it leaves England
Australia at Twickenham on November 8, Japan on the 14th, New Zealand on the 21st and then the finals weekend from the 27th, where the side that tops the north meets the side that tops the south.
It might not be enough against South Africa in a final, and it might not be enough against an incredible New Zealand side on the 21st, but England will be seriously competitive in both, and for the first time in a long while that is a sentence built on the forwards rather than on hope.
It’s all about selection, and the selection starts up front. Pick the pack to win the collision, keep Feyi-Waboso wrapped in cotton wool until it’s won, and the PREM way looks after itself.
James While’s England team: 15 George Furbank, 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Henry Slade, 12 Benhard Janse van Rensburg or Max Ojomoh, 11 Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, 10 Fin Smith, 9 Alex Mitchell, 8 Ben Earl, 7 Tom Curry, 6 Courtney Lawes, 5 Ollie Chessum, 4 George Martin, 3 Joe Heyes, 2 Jamie George, 1 Ellis Genge.
Replacements: 16 Fin Baxter or Beno Obano, 17 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 18 Will Stuart, 19 Alex Coles, 20 Maro Itoje, 21 Guy Pepper (Sam Underhill if fit), 22 Ben Spencer, 23 Marcus Smith or Max Ojomoh.