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Steve Borthwick reveals how Manu Tuilagi reacted to England axe

(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

New England boss Steve Borthwick has explained how Manu Tuilagi reacted when he told the Sale midfielder that he was not picked to play Scotland in this Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations opener. Tuilagi had been a selection favourite under Eddie Jones, Borthwick’s predecessor as head coach, and he started three of the four recent Autumn Nations Series matches, coming off the bench in the other game.

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However, having named Tuilagi in the reduced England squad of 29 that was announced on Tuesday evening to continue preparing for the Calcutta Cup fixture, it emerged on Thursday that the centre had been omitted from the match day 23.

Borthwick has instead chosen the Stade Francais-bound Joe Marchant to start at outside centre alongside skipper Owen Farrell, with Ollie Lawrence providing backup from the bench. For both Marchant and Lawrence, their inclusion is a marked difference from their fortunes under Jones. Marchant was excluded from the entire November series while Lawrence hasn’t been capped since 2021.

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Asked how Tuilagi reacted to the news that he wouldn’t be playing for England in this weekend’s fixture, Borthwick said: “Manu was the incredible professional that he is. We spoke, I told him what I had decided selection-wise and we shook hands and then he went and trained really hard. That reaction is testimony to him and his character.

“And not just him, there were several players in that way and ultimately what we want to build here is a team that is not something about selection, it’s a team that is building and going forward to try and win for England which means you have got to train hard every day.

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“We want to build a team that is not just about getting picked, it’s about going and playing well and that is what we want as a team. We want this team playing well and players are fighting for selection, players are working on the training field. They know I am watching and taking notice of it and when I have those conversations, I give the players clear feedback.”

Borthwick, who confirmed that Tuilagi was definitely fit and available for selection, explained why he had opted to start Marchant on this occasion and include Lawrence on the bench at the expense of Tuilagi. “I look at the combinations for the game, this specific game, and I look at what Joe offers in terms of the work on the edge, his ability to cover ground defensively, attack. And OIlie Lawrence has played tremendously well this season.

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“We will always be excited about seeing Ollie Lawrence out there again in an England shirt. Again, he is a player who has not been in the international environment for a year or two but you see when players play well. Everyone would say whether he is centre or wing, Joe Marchant has played well week in, week out at Harlequins for a considerable period of time now and you could say the same for Ollie Lawrence.

“Again I come back to this, these players are working hard to deserve their opportunity and they are desperate for that opportunity against Scotland. The players can’t wait to get on the pitch and personally I can wait to see them get on the pitch.”

Borthwick added that Tuilagi’s exclusion isn’t intended to be a long-term decision. “I picked a team for this week and there is competition and the nature is there should always be good players that aren’t in the 23 because that is what we want with England. We want depth in every position, people competing for the shirt, and we want to see players fighting for the shirt. You make the selection for this week for a specific opponent and then next week is a new week.”

Borthwick’s first team selection contained a total of eight changes to the starting England XV from the side that Jones had picked for his final match in charge, the November loss to South Africa. Max Malins, Marchant, the debut-making Ollie Hassell-Collins, Ellie Genge, Ollie Chessum, Lewis Ludlam, Ben Curry and Alex Dombrandt were all named as starters on this occasion.

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J
JW 6 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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