Steve Borthwick has acknowledged the challenges presented by managing Marcus Smith’s diminished role for England but has urged the recalled playmaker to kickstart his side’s attack against Fiji on Saturday.
Borthwick revealed that he met with Smith before England’s autumn campaign to offer support to the Harlequins No 10, who was first-choice fly-half 12 months ago before being moved to full-back and then to the role of super sub.
After a patchy start to the season with Harlequins, Smith was absent from England’s 25-7 victory over Australia last weekend but with Freddie Steward nursing a hand injury, he comes back into the side at full-back while Fin Smith replaces George Ford at fly-half.
In total, Borthwick has made seven personnel changes with Luke Cowan-Dickie, Ellis Genge, Alex Coles, Ollie Lawrence and Chandler Cunningham-South starting against Fiji, who were victorious on their most recent visit to Twickenham in 2023.
Genge will captain the side from the start with Maro Itoje, who has been struggling with a lower leg injury, named on the bench for the first time since 2017.
Marcus Smith, who signed a new Harlequins deal last year, has made clear that his preferred position is fly-half but his versatility earned him a spot on the summer’s British & Irish Lions tour of Australia and is valued by Borthwick, who again awarded enhanced contracts to all three of his fly-halves over the summer.
“[Marcus Smith is] a brilliant player and it’s very competitive with the three fly-halves we’ve got,” said Borthwick. “Marcus has the versatility to play 15 as well and I think he’s a top class 15. He’s always working, you see him out there at the end of training, he’s always working to add to his game. I think he’s hungry and he’s an exciting player. That’s what I suppose I want to see on Saturday.
“Marcus is someone I’ve met a couple of times out of camp in the last period. I think I want all the players to feel supported on the journey. It’s rare that anybody’s journey just goes in one direction and stays that way. Players always have bumps and their own corners to turn, that’s always part of the nature of it and I think the coaching team is there supporting our players.
M Smith (Harlequins); T Freeman (Northampton), O Lawrence (Bath), F Dingwall (Northampton), I Feyi-Waboso (Exeter); F Smith (Northampton), A Mitchell (Northampton); E Genge (Bristol, co-captain), L Cowan-Dickie (Sale), J Heyes (Leicester), A Coles (Northampton), O Chessum (Leicester ), G Pepper (Bath), B Earl (Saracens), C Cunningham-South (Harlequins).
Replacements: J George (Saracens), F Baxter (Harlequins), A Opoku-Fordjour (Sale), M Itoje (Saracens, co-captain), T Curry (Sale ), H Pollock (Northampton), B Spencer (Bath), H Arundell (Bath).
“Whereas a player is always selected for their club, sometimes that’s not quite the case here and the role changes. That produces challenges for us and in the environment because they all want to play, but I’d much rather it that way than the other way.”
England scored four tries against the Wallabies but were only 10-7 up at half-time and it took Henry Pollock’s moment of magic to lift a decidedly flat Twickenham crowd after the interval. Borthwick lamented England’s failure to finish off tries having worked themselves into promising positions but believes his decision to recall both Smiths can sharpen his side’s attacking potency.
“Fin Smith and Marcus were champing a bit for the opportunity,” said Borthwick. “So I think you see a team that will want to move the ball. I think you see again we’ve got pace and power on the edges. I’m really hopeful there that we’ll see Marcus in space in unstructured opportunities, which I think everybody in the stadium is going to be excited when that ball comes into Marcus’s hand in a bit of space. Last week we had some of those opportunities, the players had a great attitude in some difficult conditions to go and take those opportunities in unstructured situations. Unfortunately, we didn’t convert them.”
Borthwick explained his decision to omit Itoje from the starting lineup was due to an injury sustained by the captain against the Wallabies that prevented him from taking part in training until Thursday.
The Saracens director of rugby, Mark McCall, had urged Borthwick to rest Itoje at some point during the autumn on the back of an exhausting season in which he led the Lions against the Wallabies and exceeded the mandatory game limit but the England head coach insisted he was not obliged to rest his captain.
“Maro had a little knock, again nothing to any great extent, but it meant he couldn’t train the first half of the week,” said Borthwick. “I felt the right thing to do was to prioritise the combination that were training for the full week. That’s why I made the decision to put Maro on the bench. Player welfare is always paramount in my thoughts. We always work towards that.”
