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.
