Category: England Rugby

Back-row scored stunning try against Australia but perhaps he can be advised to rein in fractionally some of his antics

The sporting gods can sometimes be mischievous. Steve Borthwick’s vision of rugby heaven is a cohesive team that consistently delivers without huge amounts of fuss and squeezes the life out of opponents like a white-shirted python. Control, physicality, tactical acumen and work rate will forever be more central to his vision of Test match success than individual front-page razzle-dazzle.

And what happens? With almost comic timing the door to the England dressing room has been flung off its hinges by a 20-year-old rock star forward with the ability to transform games on his own. Henry Pollock has now scored three tries in 61 minutes of international rugby, is all over social media and already has half the rugby world itching to punch his lights out.

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England captain stresses team must display their full power in Saturday’s first of four home internationals in November

Just occasionally even the world’s best rugby players are genuinely taken aback. In mid-September, Maro Itoje, recuperating from his British & Irish Lions exertions, stood and watched an England training session and could not believe the pace, intensity and all-round zip on view. “I was thinking: ‘Wow, I need to get back in the gym, I need to make sure I come back quickly,’” he admitted this week.

Itoje says his former teammate Mako Vunipola was just as impressed – “He didn’t remember it being that fast” – on a visit to England’s base in Bagshot the other day. Another recent retiree, the England scrum-half Danny Care, felt similarly. All of which has been fuelling Itoje’s growing belief, with the 2027 Rugby World Cup on the horizon, that “there’s no mountain we can’t climb”.

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Centre pairing of Northampton duo Tommy Freeman and Fraser Dingwall is unconventional but exciting, as is the depth of England’s squad

Optimism is often manufactured at the start of a campaign. Everyone goes in believing they can win every game, but there is a mood of true optimism around England before the autumn series. Considering they have won their last seven matches, had their best finish to a Six Nations for five years, and then won a summer series in Argentina, I think it’s fair to have confidence. Argentina beat the British & Irish Lions and England won there despite having 13 players away in Australia, plus one of the coaches.

The amount of Prem players excelling and the level in that competition also makes me excited for what England can achieve in November, starting with Australia on Saturday. Steve Borthwick is growing into the job and is more confident in what he’s doing: turbulence may not be the right word for the early days of his tenure, but I think people expected more. As fans we want immediate results, but coaches tend to have a “helicopter” view and understand the direction of travel.

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Steve Borthwick has opted for the Northampton centre, his ‘glue’ player, over an array of talented England backs

Even Steve Borthwick admits that picking his team to face Australia on Saturday was tricky. And even after he had made his mind up, there was a training ground snapshot which underlined the slim margins involved. “There was a piece of play where the skill showed by the team not starting was absolutely incredible,” said Borthwick. “I couldn’t praise them highly enough for the way they tested the team that is starting.”

Which neatly sums up England’s intensifying backline debate. Ollie Lawrence, Marcus Smith, Henry Arundell, Henry Slade, Cadan Murley and Max Ojomoh are all fit and can’t even make the matchday 23. Not to mention the up-and-coming Noah Caluori. Nor Owen Farrell. Let alone the injured Elliot Daly, George Furbank, Seb Atkinson, Ollie Sleightholme and Will Muir.

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• Head coach may also consider playing Ben Earl at centre

• Marcus Smith left out of matchday 23 to face Australia

Steve Borthwick is considering playing his fast-rising back-row Henry Pollock on the wing at some stage this autumn as he seeks fresh impetus in all areas before the looming November Tests.

The England head coach says he wants his side to hit the ground running against Australia on Saturday and may also start Ben Earl at centre this season.

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• Sale No 10’s tactical nous may earn him start on Saturday

• Tommy Freeman in contention for outside-centre spot

George Ford is likely to start at fly-half when England begin their autumn internationals campaign against Australia at Twickenham on Saturday.

The Sale Sharks No 10 enjoyed an outstanding summer tour with Steve Borthwick’s side, helping to orchestrate two victories against Argentina and one against the USA, and appears to have stated a strong case for selection.

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• 19-year-old wing scored five tries on first Prem start

• Borthwick has picked 36-player squad for four matches

Noah Caluori, the 19-year-old ­Saracens wing, has been named in England’s autumn internationals squad by Steve Borthwick.

Caluori burst on to the Prem scene by scoring five tries against Sale on 18 October and, as England gear up for a busy November featuring four Tests, Borthwick has called up the uncapped youngster after initially inviting him to a training camp last week. The 36-player squad, including 19 forwards and 17 backs, gathered at Pennyhill Park in Surrey on Sunday night.

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Head coach faces delicate balancing act before opening November Test as Saracens’s new whiz-kid enters mix

The lobby of the Pennyhill Park hotel on a Monday evening provides a neat snapshot of English rugby’s fast-changing world. First to amble into view is Noah Caluori, Saracens’s new whiz-kid who has just announced himself with five tries on his first Prem start. He nods a polite greeting and looks every inch a sporting thoroughbred that any national coach would covet.

A couple of minutes later a more familiar face appears. It feels faintly bizarre to be bumping into Joe Marler when, on your television, he is sitting in a Scottish castle with Claudia Winkleman but, hey presto, that’s the magic of showbiz right there. One minute you’re propping for England, the next you’re attempting to out-think Stephen Fry.

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• England coach talks up 6ft 5in wing’s humility and desire

• Door closed on Tom Willis but left ajar for Owen Farrell

England could fast-track the Saracens teenager Noah Caluori into the Test spotlight as soon as next month following the wing’s dramatic start to his top-level club career. The 19-year-old celebrated his first Prem start with five tries against Sale Sharks on Satur­day and the national head coach, Steve Borthwick, says he is already in contention for a senior England debut.

It was impossible to miss Caluori’s aerial ability and eye for the try line at the weekend with the former Lions captain Sam Warburton ­describing the 6ft 5in player as “almost undefendable” and “an absolute diamond”. England have been aware of his potential for a while and it seems that some game time against Fiji a fortnight on Saturday is not impossible.

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• Saracens’ 19-year-old wing impressed in win over Sale

• Jack Willis omitted from autumn internationals lineup

Noah Caluori, the 19-year-old ­Saracens wing, has been invited to train with England by the head coach, Steve Borthwick, after an incredible five-try barrage against Sale in his first start in the Prem on Saturday.

A 36-man training squad has been named to prepare for the upcoming autumn internationals, with Jack Willis the most notable omission by Borthwick after the No 8’s decision to return to play in France.

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• No 8 to leave Saracens at end of the season

• Only Gallagher Prem players eligible for England

Tom Willis will leave Saracens at the end of the season after signing a contract with Bordeaux that will make him ineligible for Steve Borthwick’s England squad. In a major blow to the head coach, Willis has rejected a new deal from Saracens in order to return to the club where he spent a chunk of the 2022-23 campaign once Wasps had entered administration.

Since heading to north London in 2023, he has established himself as England’s first-choice No 8 and was awarded an enhanced contract by the Rugby Football Union in recognition of the impact he has made.

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• Former captain will not be in training squad next week

• Farrell has not played for England since 2023 World Cup

Owen Farrell is expected to be overlooked by Steve Borthwick for England’s autumn internationals campaign despite injury headaches at inside-centre. It is understood that Farrell will not be named in a training squad on Sunday for next week’s mini camp and as a result Borthwick is expected to omit the 34-year-old former captain when he finalises his squad on 26 October.

The Gloucester centre Seb Atkinson, who started England’s two summer victories over Argentina, is sidelined through injury and likely to miss all four autumn Tests, against Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and Argentina, but as things stand that is not going to prompt Borthwick to turn to Farrell, who has not appeared for his country since the 2023 World Cup.

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• Players who sign up would be ineligible for national sides

• Proposed event yet to be sanctioned by World Rugby

Senior global rugby figures believe the rebel R360 venture is all but dead unless it can find a way to appease the world’s top nations. In a dramatic move the leading unions collectively made clear this week that players involved in the R360 competition would be ineligible for their national sides and have warned them to treat offers with “extreme caution”.

Privately there is a widespread view that those pushing the R360 concept, fronted by the England World Cup winner Mike Tindall, now face a struggle to get the project off the ground if the world’s top male and female players are required to forfeit their international futures to join the rebel league.

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Moody’s diagnosis with motor neurone disease at the age of 47 is desperate news for all those who know and love him

Back when he was captaining England at the 2011 Rugby World Cup, Lewis Moody went canyon swinging near Queenstown in New Zealand. Despite being utterly fearless on the pitch he was not brilliant with heights. That day, he wrote in his autobiography, was “the most terrifying experience of my life”. Or at least it was. A fortnight ago, he and his family were plunged into something infinitely scarier.

Moody’s diagnosis with the incurable motor neurone disease at the age of 47 is, first and foremost, desperate news for all those who know and love him. There are good guys and then there is “Moodos”, about whom nobody in rugby has a bad word. Cruel doesn’t come close to describing it.

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Fresh from a chat with the Ryder Cup captain, the Saracens stalwart is back at his old club with half an eye on an England return too

By his own admission, Owen Farrell was exhausted after the first weekend of the season. A stray boot to the face inside 10 minutes made for a bloody nose and a rude awakening on his second Saracens debut against Newcastle, 17 years after his first. Farrell soldiered on to the hour mark, helping Saracens to a bonus-point victory before an early train home on Saturday morning. It was Sunday that left him “emotionally drained”, however.

Farrell was glued to Europe’s Ryder Cup triumph, watching Luke Donald’s side so nearly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The 34-year-old is a keen golfer – he took the phone call from his father, Andy, to join the British & Irish Lions tour in July in a clubhouse – and played alongside Donald at last month’s PGA Championship Pro-Am at Wentworth.

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