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The Northampton injury update on England hopeful Fin Smith
By Liam Heagney
Fin Smith isn’t expected to be an injury concern when Steve Borthwick sits down on Sunday to select his England tour squad which will be publicly confirmed on Monday.
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The 22-year-old missed the closing 10 minutes of Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership final through injury, leaving the field on 70 minutes with Northampton yet to create the converted try that earned them the title on a 25-21 scoreline versus Bath.
The out-half was part of three England match day squads last February, coming off the bench in Italy and then earning a second cap in Scotland and being left an unused sub at home to Wales.
He is now expected to be selected as one of three out-halves along with George Ford and Marcus Smith for a tour featuring the June 22 match in Tokyo against Japan and then the two-Test July series in New Zealand.
Asked to provide an injury update on Smith, Northampton boss Phil Dowson reported: “He had very bad cramp… we felt that the best thing to do would be to put TJ (Tom James) on and have George (Furbank) slot in at 10.”
Having arrived at Franklin’s Gardens in November 2022 following the collapse of Worcester, Smith took over at out-half from Toulon-bound Dan Biggar and he has excelled this season, featuring in 18 of Northampton’s 20 league games (16 as a starter) and also starting all seven matches in their run to the Investec Champions Cup semi-finals.
Despite doing so well, director of rugby Dowson claimed after the league title win that Smith’s frequent frustration with his own level of performance will push him onto even greater things. “You forget that he is 22. He is mature beyond his years, he is incredibly ambitious and driven,” he explained.
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“He is frustrated, he is always the harshest critic so he is always frustrated with some element of his game that hasn’t gone as well as he would have liked to have done and that is where the growth is.
“A bit like Courtney (Lawes), he is always pushing, always wants to be better, it’s never quite right and that bodes really well for the future and makes sure we can give as much guidance around how his game can grow.
“To put the game on his back and be that playmaker and the fulcrum of our attack is huge. We love him, we have loved him since we watched him at Worcester, Sam Vesty and I. We know what he is capable of and he is going to get better.”
Dowson paid tribute to the role departing skipper Lawes played in nurturing young talent such as Smith throughout the 2023/24 campaign. “He has been fairly humble in his answer about how much he has added to the group because we have got a young group.
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“There is no hiding that and his presence and his confidence is really, really obvious throughout the group in games like today, games like last week, games at Croke Park where Courtney has been there and done that on the biggest stage and players look to him.
“That’s something that’s an intangible. You can’t really put a figure on it but that has a huge impact on the players around the group and the players have grown. He has allowed them to grow and show them the way to play these games.”
