NICK CAIN
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THE 17 RFU central contracts announced by Steve Borthwick on Friday pale into insignificance compared with the imperative of the head coach building strength-in-depth in each position in the England team after almost two years in charge.
A pressing reason is that the imminent Autumn Tests against the big three southern hemisphere powers will demand it.
There is a sense, however, with the 36-man squad the head coach picked for the Girona training camp, that he has a multi-tiered wedding cake in which the filling is too thin in some place...