Jeremy Guscott: Marland Yarde and Christian Wade deserve another look by Stuart Lancaster

The England back three is still a work in progress, and with Manu Tuilagi not back from injury until just before the World Cup, finding back-up at 13 for Jonathan Joseph is also important.
That’s why I’d be surprised if Stuart Lancaster doesn’t look again at wings Christian Wade, Jonny May and Marland Yarde alongside incumbents Anthony Watson and Jack Nowell when he announces his 45-man England training squad in a couple of weeks, while Elliot Daly should also come into contention at outside-centre.
If there are six wings the other place would be a scrap between Chris Ashton, David Strettle and Semesa Rokoduguni. It’s tough, but a squad has to be competitive, because then players feed off each other.
It gives them the chance to show different touches and moves to the coaches, and every now and then in training you’ll get Wade running against Nowell, and May or Ashton against Watson.
The likes of Yarde falling out of form for much of this season is no surprise, though he’s had a bit of an improvement recently. It often happens when players come through strongly one season, and then have to back it up the next. Sometimes they stutter, especially if their clubs are misfiring in the way Harlequins have.
When your team is not working – and Quins have been a bit flaky – often all you’ll get is the chance to chase kicks, or catch them when they are booted back.
Lancaster often talks about players with credit in the bank, and, if so, Yarde was the standout wing in New Zealand last summer. He is a powerful, hard, solid guy who showed what he could do in the Test arena against the best, and the try he scored when he went through Richie McCaw was fantastic.
If you get a couple of guys scoring a lot of tries and they can’t get a look-in, like Ashton and Strettle this season, then something else is going on.
Maybe it’s because the way Saracens play isn’t the England way, but it’s hard to understand because these guys finish off moves. Yet, at the moment, for whatever reason, they are seen as square pegs in round holes.
When May is running with the ball as he did for that amazing try against New Zealand in the autumn it’s great to see, but it hasn’t happened enough for him to make errors and not be dropped.
In a very exposed position like wing or full-back when you make mistakes they are there for all to see – and I’m afraid he made too many in quick succession.
The back three has become very competitive, but I’d like to see Wade given a run – and the same applies to his Wasps teammate Daly.
Wade’s injuries have prevented him getting enough of an opportunity until now, but that’s how Test rugby is. No-one liked going one-to-one with Jason Robinson in training a few years ago, and I’m sure it would be the same now with Wade.
But Watson, Nowell and May are all still young, so there are difficult choices for Lancaster to make.
I’m sure he’d like a squad where you could lose three players in the back three and then bring in another trio within the blink of an eye.
The only problem for the England head coach is that, unlike New Zealand, the players he can bring in are not like-for-like. For instance, Nowell and Wade are very different wings, and at 13 the same applies to Tuilagi and Daly.
Daly’s talent is there for all to see – he has elite standard pace and has that x-factor about him in terms of ability to beat a player. The only drawback with George Ford playing so well at fly-half is that if you put Kyle Eastmond and Daly outside him it might not be imposing enough defensively. While that line-up would survive in the Premiership, at international level it might struggle. The only way for an Eastmond-Daly centre pairing to make the breakthrough is to play so well they cannot be ignored.
It amuses me when you hear this stuff about giving a player a ‘run of games’. It implies that you are given ten chances at Test rugby to bed-in, which is rubbish. Every cap is like being in a title fight in boxing, in which you have to retain your title. You simply have to take every chance you are given.
If Mike Brown, Alex Goode and Ben Foden are all fit there is a big fight ahead for the full-back shirt. I put Chris Pennell in that group in terms of ability 100 per cent, and the same goes for Nick Abendanon – even though Pennell is at a disadvantage because he plays in the Championship and likewise Abendanon because he’s in the French Top 14.
However, for me the deciding factor should not be where you’re playing, but how well. If he picks on form Lancaster will not make many mistakes in his 45.