It wasn’t just the way Steve Borthwick used his bench that shaped England’s victory over France, it was the way he didn’t use it, too. Instead of bringing on Harry Randall, Borthwick backed Alex Mitchell to play a full 80 minutes, something he hasn’t allowed any scrum-half to do since Mitchell last did it during England’s tour of New Zealand.
Mitchell missed most of the intervening games while he was recovering from a neck injury, including the three defeats in the autumn when Borthwick chopped and changed between Randall, Ben Spencer and Jack van Poortvliet in the interim.
