I have a great deal of sympathy for Marcus Smith. I really feel for him because these past few weeks will have been really mentally tough to deal with. It’s patently obvious that his preferred position is fly-half but he has been asked to do a job for the greater good of the team and has done so willingly. You can dress it up however you like but going from starting No 10, to playing out of position, to the bench is a demotion and that will be tough to take.
Marcus would be forgiven for looking at the team that Steve Borthwick has picked to face Italy and wondering why he was never given that backing. Fin Smith has performed superbly well in the No 10 jersey and after two games there, Borthwick has surrounded him with Northampton players with five in the backline. It’s a credit to Saints, their style of play, their players and coaches, and it gives Fin the perfect framework in which to to operate. I’m not sure, though, if Borthwick ever built a team around Marcus in the same way.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway of the past few weeks is the value that George Furbank brings to this side. Since the World Cup and the international retirement of Owen Farrell, England have moved away from a 10-12 dual playmaker axis to 10-15. It’s on trend – New Zealand have done it for a while, France do it with Romain Ntamack and Thomas Ramos, South Africa with Handré Pollard and Willie le Roux or Damian Willemse. Marcus has been asked to play that role and has he played well? Yes. Has he played his best stuff? Probably not, but did Antoine Dupont play his best when he moved to fly-half? Or to look at it another way, did Ben Thomas look at his best for Wales when he moved to inside-centre where he is more comfortable?
Has England’s attack looked clunky because of Marcus’s performances or because of the philosophy the team is imbued with? I’d say the latter. Against Scotland, England kicked 69% of their possession. Their pass-to-kick ratio was 1:2.7, which means that, roughly speaking, for every three passes their fourth action was to kick. It’s hard to get attacking fluency if that’s the case.
It’s important to depersonalise it but I’m not sure Borthwick completely trusts Marcus’s style of play because it is in complete conflict with how the head coach sees the game. I’ve played with Steve, he was my captain, and Marcus’s instinctive game is not part of Steve’s DNA. It was not how he played, not how he coached domestically and not how he has coached at international level. He had to pick Marcus because of how consistently brilliant he has been for Harlequins but I suspect that when Steve watches Fin at No 10, his heart rate drops a little bit. He feels more comfortable.
That can be really tough to cope with as an individual and it’s the really difficult thing about elite sport, it’s subjective. You can work hard, train the house down, be England’s best performer over the past 12 months, but if that one person who matters doesn’t see it, or there’s a conflict of philosophy, you’re just not going to play. And it’s totally out of your control. Those are the peaks and troughs that elite sports people go through.
It would be really easy for me to say that Marcus needs to keep working hard, keep his head down, keep training well, but in all walks of life, everyone needs to see that putting in hard work will pay off. But I would urge him to be himself, be the best version of himself, the version that led to his callup to the last British & Irish Lions tour. Ultimately, Steve has repeatedly said that he wants the players to be the best versions of themselves in an England jersey. Over the past 12 months, Marcus has done that and right now it is not deemed good enough.
It hurts, it chips away at you. It’ll be wrapped up differently, sold to Marcus as a different role, coming on from the bench, that’s the emotional takeaway. One of the best skills you need as a rugby player is to compartmentalise your emotions. In the short term, the only thing that matters is how he plays when he comes on. He will get an incredible reception, the fans love Marcus. I’m looking forward to the applause he gets, hopefully England will be in a favourable position and they will be more positive with ball in hand, which will suit Marcus.
It’s a tough sell to the casual fan – how are England going to improve in an attacking sense without the person many believe is their best attacking player? I was in the gym the other day and it was all anyone wanted to talk to me about.
Someone said it was like Lampard and Gerrard – they can’t play together – someone else making the comparison of the England football team and last year’s European Championship, how Gareth Southgate shoehorned all those skilful midfielders into his side and it didn’t work. One person even said Jonny Wilkinson should be at fly-half!
It just shows how many varied opinions are out there and ultimately no one knows the side better than the head coach. He has to cut through all the noise.
The proof will be in the pudding on Sunday. I understand the frustrations within the camp that after losing so many narrow matches, they finally get over the line a couple of times but are still criticised for their style of play.
Ultimately that comes back to Borthwick promising an expansive gameplan in the buildup and England not producing that. He has done so again and now is the time to deliver.
