Marcus Smith has been recalled to the England squad preparing to face France this weekend after his dazzling display in Harlequins’ win against Exeter. He was dropped for England’s fallow-week training camp in Brighton last week but has returned to the squad for the Six Nations fixture against Les Bleus on Saturday.
Smith is included along with the England captain, Owen Farrell, as well as George Ford with Steve Borthwick selecting all three of his fly-half contenders in a 36-man squad. Farrell and Ford were part of the Brighton camp last week whereas Smith was released to Harlequins for game time, having come off the bench in England’s past two Six Nations matches against Italy and Wales.
He sent the clearest possible reminder of his talents, earning the award for man of the match in Quins’ 40-5 win against Exeter at Twickenham in front of the England head coach. He also was given a ringing endorsement to return to Twickenham on Saturday and produce a similar performance by the Harlequins coach, Tabai Matson, who insisted Smith had done “exactly what Steve [Borthwick] wanted”.
After both scoring tries against Exeter, Cadan Murley and Joe Marchant have also been included but Ollie Hassell-Collins, who crossed the whitewash in London Irish’s win against Newcastle on Sunday after returning from a knee injury, has not been. Manu Tuilagi has been included but is still suspended and cannot appear against France while Jack Willis, who was due to be in action for Toulouse on Sunday night, has also been selected and is expected to join up with the squad on Monday.
Borthwick has a number of playmaking options as England seek to keep their 18-year unbeaten home record against France in the Six Nations intact. Dropping Farrell from the starting XV seems inconceivable so either his captain remains at fly-half with either Smith or Ford on the bench, or shifts back to inside centre, allowing one of the two out-and-out No 10s to start. Ford has had limited game time for Sale Sharks since returning from a long-term achilles injury but is well known to Borthwick from their time together at Leicester.
How Borthwick proceeds in the coming days will be instructive because it is hard to argue the case for three fly-halves in the trimmed-down squad he will name on Tuesday. Having decided to drop Smith last week he called a press conference to explain the move but he is shrewd enough to know there was a sense of inevitability to the performance Smith produced against Exeter. It makes it harder for Borthwick to leave Smith out of the 23 against France, whether from the off or as a replacement. There is a nagging suspicion, though, that Ford is a better fit for the framework Borthwick is attempting to install as part of his England rebuild.
“If [Marcus] keeps performing like that he can’t be ignored for too long,” the Harlequins scrum-half Danny Care said. “I can completely understand what Steve has tried to do over a short space of time. Get the basics done incredibly well and pick a team he probably knows. He knows Owen inside out and Owen’s a brilliant player. It’s hard to not pick Owen … he’s that good of a leader and he drives everything.
“I still think the two can work in tandem and you can get the best performance out of the 10 shirt with either of them starting or either of them coming off the bench. It just depends which team you’re playing. Like I say, I’m not the England coach but I think Marcus has done everything he could to keep knocking on the door. When he’s on your team you’ve got a better chance than when he’s not.”
