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.
