Steve Borthwick revealed Billy Vunipola has grafted into the best shape of his career ahead of the Rugby World Cup.
Head coach Borthwick justified selecting Vunipola as England’s sole specialist No 8 for the fast-approaching tournament in France by explaining how the Saracens talisman has hit peak condition.
Vunipola is close to full match fitness after knee surgery in April, and was named in England’s World Cup 33-man squad by Borthwick on Monday.
The 30-year-old Saracens powerhouse will be backed up at No 8 by Lewis Ludlam and Ben Earl in England’s squad for France, with Harlequins’ Alex Dombrandt a punchy omission.
Vunipola has typically required weeks of match action to hit top shape, but Borthwick insisted the dangerous ball-carrier is already impressing in training.
“Billy has been fantastic in this training camp, I’ve seen just how hard he’s worked to come back from his injury,” said Borthwick.
“He looks in great shape and the fittest I’ve ever seen him. I think his experience will add to this squad.”
Borthwick explained that the chance to work with Vunipola across the eight-week pre-season training camp has helped tip the balance in the Saracens man’s favour. Vunipola was overlooked for selection for the entire Six Nations, then missed the end of the club season with that knee problem.
Now though, Borthwick has been exposed to Vunipola’s finer points for an extended run, and is excited by what lies ahead for the Sydney-born back-rower.
“The opportunity to work with Billy for a long period of time now and the opportunity to understand what the team needs has been crucial,” said Borthwick.
“Clearly, we’re looking at the squad in its entirety and what it needs in terms of rugby experience in key positions, the balance of the squad. All those factors come into the decision-making process.”
England’s other major World Cup omission was the dropping of Exeter centre Henry Slade. The 30-year-old has been crucial to the bulk of England’s plans since his 2015 debut, but was edged out from Borthwick’s World Cup plans.
England’s decision to take all three fly-halves in captain Owen Farrell, George Ford and Marcus Smith left no room for Slade, Borthwick revealed.
“I decided we’d have three players in key positions – front row, scrum-half, fly-half – for the obvious reasons,” said Borthwick.
“That means in the other areas of the team you need to have positional flexibility. That’s part of the selection process.
“Henry has been excellent throughout the training camps. He was clearly disappointed but the message to all the players who haven’t been selected is to be ready to come into the squad.”
England were disjointed and sluggish in Saturday’s 20-9 Test defeat by Wales in Cardiff. Borthwick’s men now have just three warm-up matches remaining before opening their World Cup campaign against Argentina in Marseille on Saturday, September 9.
The chances to find tactical ingenuity and gameplan fluency are running short, but Borthwick still believes England will be ready.
“I’ve been really pleased to have the coaching team together for the last eight weeks and I can promise you we’ve been using every minute of the eight weeks as best we can,” said Borthwick.
“As the players have entered camp, we’ve gone through the fundamentals of what we need to do and then also been speaking to the players about being the fastest learning team. That’s what we need to do. I think we’ve used this eight weeks so far and then the aspects we can take from Saturday’s game, we can take forward to this Saturday.
“I’m looking forward to being back here at Twickenham on Saturday against Wales and then we’ll take it forward to the following weeks to make sure that when we get to play against Argentina that we are ready.”
