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England’s future prepares to stake its claim at Twickenham Stoop
At Twickenham Stoop on Sunday afternoon, 23 players wearing white will hope to do what their senior England counterparts could not and beat a team of Australians in south-west London.
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For some of those picked to play for England A the occasion could well represent the high point of their careers, but there are those who harbour realistic ambitions of crossing the A316 to win full Test honours at Allianz Stadium.
Captain Fraser Dingwall is one of those on the cusp of Steve Borthwick’s senior squad and in total, five members of the group preparing to face Australia A have previously been capped.
They have been supplemented by a sprinkling of exciting players from England’s successful U20 side and a larger number who have excelled at Premiership level but have yet to be tested on the biggest stage.
Head coach Mark Mapletoft, who led the U20s to a Six Nations and World Rugby U20 Championship double this year, knows what his players will have gone through this week.
Mapletoft was a fixture for England’s second string during the 1990s and early 2000s but won only one full cap for the senior side, in a 33-13 defeat to Argentina in Buenos Aires in June 1997.
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As a result, he experienced the full gamut of emotions representing England A, evolving from a fresh-faced Test hopeful to being “somebody trying to knock on the door” and finally “a mentor and a guide for some of these younger players”.
“I used to love it as a player, you come in, you’d meet new people, you’d get to know some lads from teams that you played against regularly,” he adds.
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“You know, some of the lads have played age group together, but then probably go off and play for different clubs, different environments, and it’s a great chance to reconnect.
“So, it’s very much a good learning opportunity, I think, for everybody.”
Mapletoft insists he has not drawn directly on his experiences as a player when coaching this week, but it is only natural that they will have informed his approach to the role.
Certainly, he is conscious of the three distinct types of players at his disposal for a team that sits between England’s development pathway and its senior squad.
Producing an environment in which young hopefuls can contribute alongside veteran Premiership players and others with Test experience – in the space of five days and just four training sessions – is no mean feat, and Mapletoft has sought advice from his predecessor George Skivington.
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“When you’re the head coach, you have to spend as much time really looking at the overview. In a such a short space of time, how do we make the environment as good as it can be? How do we make everybody comfortable?” Mapletoft says.
“I do believe if you’re confident, comfortable, you’re much more likely to be able to go out there and deliver what it is you deliver.
“[To] make sure everybody’s pulling in the right direction, just make sure we keep the messaging clear and simple.
“We don’t want too many messages over the course of the week, but we want to make sure that whatever we go after, we’re really clear in and the players can go out and deliver. And we want them to enjoy themselves, don’t we? It’s an environment to express themselves in.”
That is a message echoed by forwards coach Andy Titterrell, an assistant to Mapletoft with the U20s, and another person who knows the ethos of the A side well.
Titterrell played for the Saxons between 2003 and 2010, while also winning five Test caps and earning selection for the ill-fated 2005 British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand.
“We talk massively about a brotherhood within the Under-20s. What we can build, how we can continue to work on that brotherhood as an identity and the expectations of players when they come in,” he says.
“We’ve got to make sure that we try and bring our brotherhood piece from the 20s into [England A].
“How we can do that in a short period of time with these guys and ultimately how we can then go out and communicate well with each other to give them an opportunity to go out and play and play fast.”
Three players who know that message well, having helped England U20 to their double success, are highly rated forwards Afolabi Fasogbon and Henry Pollock, and scrum-half Archie McParland.
A fourth member of that squad, Vilikesa Sela, had been included only to be ruled out by injury while a fifth, Asher Opoku-Fordjour potentially would have been too had he not been required by Borthwick and the seniors this month.
Mapletoft says this week’s opportunity will have been “massive” for the trio involved – as well as the five U20 players called up to train with the squad – but both the head coach and Titterrell stress their progression has to be managed with caution.
“Particularly in the scrum there’s an awful lot of hype around these lads and what they did collectively,” Mapletoft says.
“When you excel in an area, people naturally [think], ‘Well, let’s fast track these lads through’.
“Whether you think it’s right or not, or we need a bit of strength in depth in those areas or we need some fresh players coming through, the reality is you need fresh players coming through and knocking on the door and putting pressure on the established players in all positions, don’t you?
“Because competition just drives people on. But certainly, they probably come with big reputations and of course doing that at under-20s level’s fine. There’s a massive gulf between under-20s and club rugby, let alone club rugby and senior international rugby.
“But it’s all part of the process, all part of the learning curve, and of course you would hope those players would naturally get better the more they’re exposed to that level.”
It is a learning opportunity for the coaches too, with the U20 panel of Mapletoft, Titterrell and Nathan Catt being bolstered by Bath’s Lee Blackett and Exeter’s Haydn Thomas as well as several members of the Red Roses’ backroom team.
They will all gain from the experience but so too will their visitors. So, what do England expect from Australia A – who drew 10-10 with Bristol last Friday – on Sunday?
According to Blackett, “it won’t be a million miles off” what the senior team faced against the Wallabies last weekend.
“It was quite nice to see them play Bristol on Friday night,” the attack coach said. “There’s a few little differences probably within the two teams, but there’s a lot that’s very similar.”
That should be music to the ears of anyone heading down to the Stoop on Sunday afternoon.
See England’s brightest young talent when England A take on Australia A on Sunday, 17 November at Harlequins’ Twickenham Stoop – KO 14:00 GMT. Tickets are available from only £25 for adults & £15 for U16 (+booking fees) here.
View the match live and free on RugbyPass TV (exc. UK & Australia).
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