Steve Borthwick avoids grand statements but England’s Rugby World Cup squad offers clues

For England’s players, there is now certainty. After eight weeks in camp, an angsty performance against Wales and a restless Saturday night in a Cardiff hotel, the selection fretting is over; barring injury, illness or an act of God, Steve Borthwick has his chosen 33 for the World Cup.

Borthwick has named his squad a full three weeks before the World Rugby-imposed deadline. It is hoped that this clarity will be helpful; there was a sense in the England camp that the anxiety over selection among the players undermined their preparation for the trip to the Principality Stadium on Saturday. Now, those chosen have a clear run and peace of mind: Borthwick hopes his squad and preferred combinations have the time to build cohesion over the three remaining warm-up fixtures ahead of England’s tournament opener against Argentina on 9 September.

Eddie Jones declared that he wanted his England “to be remembered as the greatest team that ever played rugby” at the start of this World Cup cycle, the theory being that a squad theoretically coming into their prime would come back better and stronger for the experience of being beaten by South Africa in the final. Four years later, the faces are familiar – 12 of the starting 15 from the 2019 final are back for another go – but few could repute to have consistently reproduced the sort of level they showed during that tournament in the years since.

It was no surprise, then, that Borthwick seemed to consciously avoid any sort of hubristic proclamation of winning intent on Monday. He and his team are aware of the ground that must be made up to the world’s best sides and the short space of time in which it must be done. After the squad and staff had concluded their obligations at Twickenham on Monday, it was back to a Teddington training base for the first session of the week as the chosen squad began gearing up for the return encounter against Wales on Saturday. The hard work continues.

“If you could lay it out and say to me, ‘What would you want to be right now?’, any team going to any World Cup, I’d use Clive [Woodward]’s words, ‘You want to be the best team in the world’. Ranked No 1, the favourites. That’s what Ireland have right now,” Borthwick explained.

“Now that’s not our situation, our situation is different. But we’re going to work very, very hard to ensure that we are tactically very astute in games and very physically uncompromising.

“This group of players that we work with are the most competitive people I’ve ever met. They want to win everything they go into. We’ll build through these weeks and when we play Argentina in our first game, that will be our focus. And then when we’ve played Argentina, the next game will be our focus.”

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It is a mark of England’s recent struggles that few of those cut in this final whittling to 33 could truly be termed unfortunate. In the competitive fight for back row places, Alex Dombrandt has failed to take his chances over the last 18 months, while the relative rawness of Tom Pearson and Tom Willis has probably counted against them, even if it is a surprise that Borthwick is so trusting in Billy Vunipola’s fitness as the sole specialist No 8.

Attacking cohesion is the area in which England have perhaps most lagged behind their rivals in these last four years. England left the Welsh capital without a try, despite entering the hosts’ 22 on 12 occasions. England might suggest that they were in part intentionally employing blunt instruments, saving their sharper, smarter stuff for more crucial games to come. A lack of cutting edge has been a persistent issue under both Borthwick and Jones.

The regularity in the turnover of attack coaches has probably inhibited the squad in that regard, with Richard Wigglesworth the latest to take office, but there are wider concerns about whether England have the right personnel and system to trouble the world’s best defences.

This makes the one true headline omission of Henry Slade all the more fascinating. The Exeter centre had featured in 30 of his side’s 37 fully capped games since the 2019 tournament and started four of the five Six Nations games earlier this year. Slade has been rooming with Owen Farrell since the England captain arrived in camp, to add to the feeling that he was part of the in-crowd.

While Slade has perhaps flattered to deceive too often in an England shirt, his jettisoning at this stage comes as a surprise. With Freddie Steward still firmly in a development phase as a playmaking full-back, there is probably a need for two distributors in England’s midfield.

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Slade’s omission would therefore seem to strongly hint at a return to the George Ford/Owen Farrell partnership that worked so well for England on their run to the final in 2019. While Borthwick feels confident that Manu Tuilagi and Ollie Lawrence can combine in the same centre partnership, and the carrying potential that pairing would present is obviously intriguing, there is a danger that combining them with Farrell in midfield could make England slightly one-note.

Borthwick and Wigglesworth are likely to favour a power-focused, kick-pressure game. Although Henry Arundell, Ben Earl and Theo Dan were namechecked as three carbonated characters who could provide extra energy, and Marcus Smith and Danny Care might also be tasked with sparking things off the bench, there is still a fear that England might suffer from a degree of stodginess.

It might make the usage of Elliot Daly key, with the versatile Saracen a likely beneficiary of Slade’s omission. Borthwick is a known admirer and was disappointed that an ill-timed injury ruled him out of the Six Nations. With no Slade, Daly’s left boot and ability as a roaming ball-handler become even more valuable – it feels likely that he ends up in England’s starting backline, either on the wing or at 13.

“Having his flexibility is a strength,” Borthwick said of Daly. “Whatever number he has on his back, we need to get the ball in his hands. He has the ability to make space for himself but also others. Our job is to make sure he gets the ball.”