Marcus Smith handed England recall hope after Freddie Steward injury

Marcus Smith could be handed an England recall at full-back after Freddie Steward emerged as a doubt for England’s second autumn Test against Fiji on Saturday.

Steward, 24, started at No 15 in England’s victory over Australia last Saturday but suffered a hand injury during a collision with Filipo Daugunu in the 73rd minute.

Images from the match at the Allianz Stadium showed Steward looking away and grimacing while having treatment at the side of the pitch and, afterwards, some fingers on one hand were strapped. The full-back departed in the 75^th minute and did not return, meaning England finished the game with 14 and then 13 players, after Henry Pollock’s yellow card.

It is understood that Steward sat out of England’s training session at their Pennyhill Park base on Monday and will do so on Tuesday, too. Steve Borthwick is likely to name his starting XV for the Fiji Test on Thursday. While Steward is expected to be in contention for the match-day squad, should the Leicester full-back not recover sufficiently then the England head coach will be forced into a back-line rejig.

Borthwick is already without George Furbank and Elliot Daly at full-back because of injury, so Smith would be the front-runner to replace Steward. Other options would be Henry Arundell, Henry Slade, Tom Roebuck or Tommy Freeman, the last of whom was full-back cover in the victory over the Wallabies. Such a selection would mean putting the Saint’s outside-centre project on ice. Smith started three matches at full-back during this year’s Six Nations. Should Smith start at No 15 on Saturday, Borthwick might be tempted to recall Ollie Lawrence at inside centre, given Smith’s play-making abilities.

It was Borthwick and assistant coach Kevin Sinfield who championed Smith’s switch to full-back. The Harlequins play-maker made his first start for England at full-back in the 2023 World Cup against Chile before reprising the role in the victorious quarter-final against Fiji, this weekend’s visitors at Twickenham.

In better news for England, after the victory over the Wallabies Borthwick revealed that Daly was nearing a return after fracturing his arm on the summer’s British and Irish Lions tour, on which the Saracen shone.

“I was really hopeful that Elliot was going to be right for [Australia],” Borthwick said. “I thought it was close. He had another specialist appointment, just to give it a little bit more time.

“I don’t anticipate Elliot being right this coming week, but he won’t be very far away after that, hopefully.”

Borthwick’s desire for positional flexibility is no secret. Last week, he would have no hesitation in starting Ben Earl, nominally a back-rower, at centre in a Test and that Henry Pollock and Guy Pepper, two flankers, had been training on the wing and in the midfield respectively as cover.

England taking inspiration from... Dennis Rodman

On Monday, Earl was asked whether he would be comfortable with switching to centre despite not even having started a match there for his club, Saracens.

“I would love it, just playing for England is the best, any position: water boy, 12, seven, eight – I am buzzing to be involved,” said Earl, 27. “I love being here, love helping out in any way I can. Just being there at the weekend was awesome. How good was Twickenham, how good were the fans and how good were the boys?

“I don’t know if that is going to happen or not, I am just trying to help the team anyway I can. We have got a lot of boys now who could do a good job anywhere. Henry could do a very good job on the wing. There are a few boys that could do it. It is going to be a strength of our team going forward.

“A good game as a 12 or a 13 and a good game as a back row, it is scary how aligned they are. I am thinking best 12s, best sevens, best eights, they almost all have the same skill set. To name-check a few, Levani Botia was probably the first of his kind and [André] Esterhuizen now with the Springboks is doing a little bit there. It is going to become the norm, the skill set, the requirements are very much aligned.”

Earl was one of four England try-scorers in a man-of-the-match display against Australia, with his score coming thanks to the accurate kicking of Alex Mitchell, the aerial prowess of Roebuck, and the support and speed of the No 8 alongside flanker Sam Underhill, who gave the scoring pass. For Earl, there were shades of Chicago Bulls’ great, Dennis Rodman.

“It was no coincidence that Sam and I were there in that position because we trained it a lot, we focused a lot on that, and you sort of work out where that ball’s going to go,” Earl, 27, added. 

“I just said, ‘Sam just give me that ball’, and we’ll see what happens. We’d had one a couple of weeks before in training where actually he’d run himself and we hadn’t scored, so that was proof in the pudding.

“Have you ever seen The Last Dance? Dennis Rodman – he talks about [the ball] coming off the rim. We spend a lot of time watching balls come out the hands, not to that same extent, but we talk a lot about where we think the ball’s going to go and gambling. It was no coincidence that Henry scored that try, either.”

England kicked off their autumn campaign with a 25-7 victory over Australia last weekend and face Fiji at the Allianz Stadium on Saturday before further Tests against New Zealand and Argentina.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]