One of the first phone calls Steve Borthwick made as England coach was to Elliot Daly, a player whose talent has been abundantly clear from an early age but whose international form nosedived in the final years of Eddie Jones’s tenure.
In hindsight, that drop-off is of little surprise. Daly joined Saracens at the height of their crisis and towards the end of his time in Jones’s side gave the impression of someone for whom representing his country was something to endure rather than enjoy. The upheaval had evidently taken its toll.
By the time Borthwick’s call came, however, Daly was in fine fettle again, running in a 24-minute hat-trick in the Champions Cup, and would have returned to the England fold during the Six Nations only for injury to strike. If his return to form can be chalked up to a break from the suffocating environment that Jones could employ, it is also down to the simple passing of time. For the salary cap scandal left its scars.
His return is significant because take a look at the England side Borthwick has picked for a match he can ill-afford to lose against Wales on Saturday and it is the Saracens spine that sticks out. Daly, Billy Vunipola, Jamie George, Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje line up together for England for the first time since the 2021 Six Nations. Mako Vunipola could well be joining them were it not for his back injury, while Ben Earl is on the openside to boot.
This, then, is Borthwick putting his faith in the Saracens contingent Jones showed too much loyalty to during that 2021 Six Nations campaign. All five started every match of the 2020 Autumn Nations Cup – a largely forgettable tournament that England won – but Saracens had yet to begin life in the Championship at that stage. A few months later, with Saracens scrapping away in the second tier, Jones stood by his men and England limped to fifth in the Six Nations table.
Jones has since reflected: “2021 was a very bad year for us. Saracens had just been demoted to the second division. The XV of England was then mainly formed by players from the Sarries. The problem is that their level has dropped considerably in the second division and that the performances of our national team immediately suffered from it. So I should have changed my tune. And I regret it, this is the mistake I made.”
Jones belatedly proceeded to drop them all for various lengths of time, except for Farrell and Itoje, but even those two struggled for form thereafter. It was around the time Jones was repeatedly proclaiming a “new England” and writing in his book, Leadership, that the Saracens core of his squad had become too powerful. That “Saracens had ruled the hegemonic state of English rugby. They controlled everything,” but that after their relegation, “the Saracens core had cracked completely, their power had dissolved”.
It was also around the time that Courtney Lawes began assuming the captaincy, with Ellis Genge, Tom Curry and Jack Nowell part of the leadership group. The Saracens players, with the exception of Farrell, had been stripped of their power and Lawes’s more laconic leadership was a hit with his teammates on last summer’s tour of Australia.
As assistant coach at the 2019 World Cup, Borthwick is only too aware of the positive impact an influential Saracens core can have, though he was gone when, in Jones’s eyes, it became detrimental. When, according to Lawes, “we needed a change”. Significantly, Lawes and Genge remain vice-captains but Borthwick is taking a calculated risk with players who have rekindled their form for club but not yet for country.
Daly was horribly out of touch in his last appearances under Jones and while Farrell has enjoyed a fine club season he is overdue a statement performance for England. George is Borthwick’s only realistic option at hooker but in Billy Vunipola and Itoje, Borthwick has picked players he hopes can recapture international form that has eluded them for a while now.
Like Jones, Borthwick believes successful teams can be built on a core of players from one club, whether it be the All Blacks and the Crusaders, France and Toulouse or Ireland and Leinster. “That familiarity with players around you is really important and really valuable,” said Borthwick recently, specifically about the Harlequins spine he selected last week but the same applies to his Saracens contingent.
Given the time restraints that Borthwick has been working with it is a sound theory but, though he would not admit it, he needs a statement England performance on Saturday and he has turned to a Saracens core in the hope they deliver it. It is a show of faith in Jones’s previous lieutenants and Borthwick needs them to repay it.
