It is almost seven years since Eddie Jones first invited an 18-year-old Marcus Smith to attend an England training camp in Oxford. “Some people have an apprenticeship for a year, some for 30 years,” Jones said at the time. “We don’t know with him. Talent gets you into a squad but hard work and desire gets you into the team.”
That distant quote resonated afresh as Smith, now 25, sits in England’s team hotel explaining his intense desire to make the most of the first Test against the All Blacks in Dunedin on Saturday. The fly‑half will be winning his 34th cap but in some ways this is the day for which he has really been waiting. To be master of his own destiny at No 10 in one of the world’s most challenging rugby environments is everything Jones’s boy wonder ever dreamed.
As a kid he would watch TV entranced as brilliant All Black backs such as Carlos Spencer, Dan Carter and Mils Muliaina spun their magic. Now here he is in their Kiwi back yard, feeling more energised than at any point in his England career. “These sort of tours don’t come around often, these sort of opportunities don’t come around often,” he says. “Fingers crossed, we can deliver a performance that we are proud of – and the country are proud of as well.”
While Smith has started previously at fly‑half against New Zealand, in the 2022 fixture at Twickenham that finished 25-25, he has generally had the more experienced Owen Farrell or George Ford looking over his shoulder. This time he will be running the show and sounds keen to underline exactly why Jones was so keen to pick him straight out of Brighton College all those years ago.
“I hadn’t even played a game of men’s rugby when I was called up for my first camp,” Smith says, after being named in Steve Borthwick’s starting XV for the game on Saturday. “I was put in a position which, being honest, I probably wasn’t prepared for. But it drove me to have more hunger and desire to pull on the England jersey for the first time.
“I learned from seeing guys like Owen and George play for England and the drive, determination and mental fortitude those guys have. It’s put me in a good position at this stage of my career. I realise it’s no coincidence or accident why those guys have amassed hundred of caps. It’s because their diligence, their concentration and their focus is all to the highest level.”
There have been ups and downs along the way, with not everyone wholly convinced that Smith’s attacking flamboyance is matched by consistent game-management in the grittier world of Test-match rugby.
His performance against Japan last month, however, suggested a more composed, rounded playmaker and, with the youthful Fin Smith pushing him hard, he believes the experience of the past seven years is now paying off.
“I’m nowhere near where I want to be in terms of being the finished article from a rugby point of view – or as a person – but the lessons I learned from a young age, rubbing shoulders with idols of mine, have made me confident I can showcase the best of myself for the team.
“I don’t really look at it as me individually. For me to be a part of a series-winning team here in New Zealand would mean the world. That’s the same mindset Fin has as well and I’ve loved the last three weeks training with him.”
It will certainly be instructive to see what he does if, as at Twickenham when these teams last met, the scores are tied late on. In 2022, Smith kicked the ball dead to bank the draw and he still argues it was the right call. “We’d fought so hard to get back to that position and Twickenham was bouncing. It would have been tremendous to win that game, but just imagine the noise if we’d lost.” This time,not giving the All Blacks a 25-6 head start will be the first priority.
To that end Borthwick’s team selection is a canny one. The only changes to the starting side from the 52-17 win in Tokyo are in the front row where Joe Marler and Will Stuart start with Dan Cole and the uncapped Fin Baxter on the bench. Separating Marler and Cole means England will have at least one experienced prop on the pitch at all times, with Cole poised to draw level with Jason Leonard as the country’s most-capped men’s forward.
The 22-year-old Baxter, who sealed his place on tour with an extraordinary scrummaging effort for Harlequins in Bordeaux in April, also looks destined for a lengthy Test career, while a second debutant, the Northampton winger Ollie Sleightholme, could join his father, Jon, as an England international.
