Marcus Smith has been praised for bringing his trademark “bounce” back to the England squad and, with Fin Smith emerging as a doubt for the Six Nations match against Ireland, he appears to be in line for return to the fold on Saturday.
Marcus Smith has missed England’s first three matches with a calf injury but he is fit again, and with his namesake Fin going down with a similar injury the path appears clear for a place in the squad against Ireland for the Harlequins fly-half.
George Furbank is also a fly-half option but the likelihood is Marcus Smith and George Ford are vying for the No 10 jersey if Fin Smith is ruled out. The 21-year-old, who has appeared off the bench against Italy and Wales, has not trained since last week and his chances of featuring at Twickenham appear slim.
Marcus Smith, meanwhile, has not played for England since the World Cup but has stepped up as a leader since Owen Farrell’s decision to make himself unavailable for selection. Before sustaining his injury at England’s training camp in Girona a few days before their opener against Italy, the 25-year-old was due to be installed as Steve Borthwick’s first-choice fly-half for the Six Nations and Kevin Sinfield acknowledged his return had lifted the squad following their defeat at Murrayfield.
“To have Marcus available having not had him available throughout the Six Nations is a big boost for everybody,” Sinfield said. “Not only with what he brings on the field, but off the field as well. He has got a bit about him, got some bounce about him, a big smile and he loves being out on the training field. He has had a big impact this week. He comes in and is himself all the time. We missed him in the first few weeks, so to have him back available has been really good.
“I’d say [he’s brought] a similar sort of presence [since the World Cup]. Obviously, dynamics change with Owen not being available. When a couple of your older, more experienced leaders drop off, for whatever reason, then you expect some of the younger guys to step up. And Marcus has been very good anyway.
“I’ve loved working with him, and he’s an incredible talent isn’t he. He can play the boy. The bounce he brought all throughout the World Cup and our time last year together, he’s certainly brought the last two weeks, and that’s off the field as well, because he’s a good guy to be around.”
Sinfield was cagey when discussing Fin Smith but the Northampton fly-half has been the latest England player to go down with an injury in training after namesake Marcus, Alex Mitchell and Ben Curry. “We have tried to look after him the last couple of days and we are hoping he will be in full training on Thursday,” Sinfield said.
England have received considerable criticism for the nature of their defeat by Scotland, having let a 10-0 lead slip in Edinburgh. They made 25 handling errors and conceded 22 turnovers, leaving the coaches baffled as to what went wrong, while Will Carling is among the former players to hit out, claiming England are stuck in a “data straitjacket”.
Dan Cole, who played under Borthwick at Leicester as well as with England, refuted the idea that the national team are over-reliant on numbers. “The coaches have full data and it gets filtered down into metrics to go after in the game,” the tighthead prop said. “I have a relationship with Steve where if I say: ‘ooh, can I see the data?’ he will give me the book.
“As players it’s all filtered down. It’s not like we’re going on to the field thinking, ‘the fly-half kicks it 40% of the time. He’s passed it once and run it once so now I’m going to get him’. Basically the data is filtered down and put into the game plan so we’re not thinking about stuff, we’re just doing it.”
“We want to win games of rugby and that’s the thing,” Cole added. “The key metrics in winning rugby are concede less points. Yes, you want to score tries, but there are key metrics you have to get right first – exits, set-piece – which we’re trying to go after.
“Test rugby is different to anything else, it’s a different game to the Premiership and a different game to Europe. Every game is an arm wrestle so we have to get the key metrics right. For a team like we are at the minute, we have go through and learn it.”
