Nick Cain gives his expert assessment of England’s latest elite squads
The other three centres on the roster are Brad Barritt, and international novices Billy Twelvetrees and Kyle Eastmond, all of whom favour inside-centre.
It is a strange shortfall when you consider that England had a prince of outside-centres in Jeremy Guscott, and a legacy of great No.13s before him. Among his predecessors were Clive Woodward, whose elusive running lit up the 1980 Grand Slam, and before that the mercurial hero of the 1971 Lions, David Duckham.
Will Carling (inside-centre) and Simon Halliday (inside-centre/wing) were two outstanding outside-centres in the early 1990s who plied their trade elsewhere, mainly because Guscott was around at the same time.
A decade ago, when England were world champions, they had the contrasting talents at outside-centre of Mike Tindall – who was direct and powerful – and Mike Catt, a sharp play-maker with a turn of speed.
By Lancaster’s own admission, he cannot allow the grass to grow under his feet with only 23 Test matches to go before the 2015 World Cup – and yet apparently he can see no options other than Tuilagi.
This not only puts a heavy burden of responsibility on the shoulders of the Samoan-born powerhouse, it also leaves England badly exposed in the event that he is injured. Furthermore, it limits the potential of moving Tuilagi to inside centre, which may be his best position two years from now.
While the England head coach has made some good calls in introducing six new players into his senior squad, there is also an underlying sense of a reluctance to make the bold moves required to build a team capable of ruling the world.
Outside-centre illustrates the point. It is the fulcrum of attack, and yet all Lancaster’s eggs appear to be in the Tuilagi basket at a time when he should be pursuing every avenue of turning England into a side with a lethal strike force.
After a season spent mainly on the sidelines injured, Jonathan Joseph failed to make a cast-iron case for himself in Argentina, despite limited opposition. As a consequence, he has been shunted down the pecking order to the Saxons.
It is tough on Joseph, because he has not had much game time in the senior squad, but, until he challenges again, it should mean that opportunity knocks for another No.13. That has not happened, and it is difficult to understand why.
My feeling is that Lancaster has overlooked an exciting option, and the name that springs to mind immediately is Jonny May.
One of Woodward’s selectorial attributes as England coach post-1999 was having the conviction to identify players who could make a difference, give them the specialist coaching to do the job, and back them to the hilt.
One of the bold moves that Lancaster could have made already is to fast-track May as a Test outside-centre. Instead, he’s been diverted into a Saxons side which appears to be a repository for those who have been tried and found wanting, others who are no longer the force they were, and a brigade of young hopefuls waiting until someone further up the food chain is injured.
Yet May has so many of the attributes required. The Gloucester 23-year-old is very fast, elusive, and adventurous – qualities that any backline should treasure, and especially one which, like England’s, frequently gets its gears jammed in attack.
Pace remains one of the must-have elements in any world class backline, and at the moment England are in the middle lane of the motorway. Toby Flood, Owen Farrell, Barritt, Alex Goode, Anthony Allen and Stephen Myler do not have the speed to scare defences, and nor, for all his brilliantly evasive footwork, does Mike Brown.
Even Twelvetrees does not appear to have the gas he did when he first came onto the scene at Welford Road, and while Eastmond has blistering acceleration and changes of direction over 20 metres, can he sustain it over a longer distance? Apart from Christian Wade the senior wingers could also afford to be a metre quicker, with Chris Ashton and Marland Yarde unlikely to be on the short-list of the fastest finishers on the world stage.
May has acceleration as well as long-range sprinting speed, but how much of a run he gets at outside-centre will depend on how Gloucester intend to handle their riches at No.13.
It is a typically English problem that one club has cornered so much outside-centre talent, because May is not the only Gloucester 13 the England coach should be keeping tabs on. May has seen off the claims of James Simpson-Daniel and Henry Trinder, not to mention old warhorse Tindall, to be first pick at Kingsholm.
Simpson-Daniel has more magic in his fingertips than any England player of this generation, as well as being quick. He will be 33 at the time of the World Cup – which suggests he was discarded too quickly by Lancaster – and, because of the amount of time he has been injured, he still has plenty of mileage left.
Trinder is a chip off the Simpson-Daniel block, a No.13 with sometimes exquisite sleight of hand and ghosting acceleration. On the debit side, judging by some of last season’s footage, his defence is too hit or miss and will have to improve for him to be a contender.
Another potential solution to the dearth of back-up for Tuilagi is the Wasps centre Elliot Daly, who is blessed with speed and the ability to beat his marker regularly.
However, as with May, so much will depend on whether Daly is picked at outside-centre by his club – and that is governed not just by how insistent the player is, but how persuasive Lancaster is with club directors of rugby like Nigel Davies and Dai Young.
Thursday’s EPS announcement saw Lancaster promote Wade, Eastmond and Yarde into his senior backline, while lock Dave Attwood, No.8 Billy Vunipola and openside Matt Kvesic were included in the forwards.
All of those promotions have merit, although, as I wrote at the time, it would have been better had Wade got his chance for the out-of-form Chris Ashton against Italy during last season’s Six Nations.
The England head coach described this EPS exercise as the “toughest” selection of his tenure – yet, he retained the likes of Ashton, Flood and Dylan Hartley despite their mixed fortunes last season.
He can rest assured that if he considers that to be tough, there are far bigger and harder decisions around the next few bends in the road. Here are just three of the conundrums Lancaster will have to find answers to:
Are Dan Cole or David Wilson developing into world-class tightheads, or can a latecomer like Carl Rimmer (Exeter), Kieran Brookes (Newcastle) or Will Collier (Harlequins) bring an extra dimension? If so, why aren’t two of them in the Saxons squad now?
Can he afford two lightweight locks like Geoff Parling and Joe Launchbury, or is Attwood’s size and strength essential at the set piece despite his lower work-rate in the loose?
The talk is that the England coach’s preference is a back row with a classic blindside-No.8-openside balance. If that is the case, then he has to reflect that in selection. In which case, Kvesic should get the run of Tests he needs to press his case at No.7, with Chris Robshaw now considered chiefly at blindside. If so, why wasn’t another openside, like Luke Wallace or Sam Jones, brought into the senior squad?
Those questions don’t take us beyond the pack, but similar issues exist in virtually every department.
There has been a commitment from Lancaster to develop England’s attack, but if that is going to happen then attacking backs have got to be given a run in key positions ahead of stonewall defenders.
It means, for instance, Freddie Burns getting as much game time at fly-half in the autumn series as Farrell. It suggests, too, that Twelvetrees and Eastmond will edge Barritt out of the frame, and that Brown and Ben Foden will be picked to attack from full-back, not wing.
A crucial part of Lancaster’s brief is to persuade Premiership directors of rugby to play EPS players in the position he wants to see them in.
Another is to ensure that the Saxons have a true Six Nations’A’ team competition to play in – with Wales, France, and Italy included alongside the Irish and Scots – so that he can test theory against practice and get a truer register of his support tier.
In turn that would ensure more balance in Saxons selection, because five locks (George Robson, Graham Kitchener, Ed Slater, Kearnan Myall and George Kruis) and a single loosehead (Nick Wood) is an imbalance you would not countenance if you had to play a series of closely contested matches.
Above all, Lancaster’s task this season is to start assembling a team capable of winning the World Cup, i.e. instead of slavishly copying everything New Zealand do, setting his squad on its own path to excellence and finding ways of beating them again – and again.
This EPS selection was not the worst start to the season for Lancaster, but some of his calls this week were not rigorous enough, or bold enough, for a would-be world beater.
ENGLAND SENIOR squad
FORWARDS: *David Attwood (Bath), Dan Cole (Leicester), Alex Corbisiero (Northampton), Tom Croft (Leicester), Dylan Hartley (Northampton), *Matt Kvesic (Gloucester), Joe Launchbury (Wasps), Courtney Lawes (Northampton), Joe Marler (Harlequins), Ben Morgan (Gloucester), Geoff Parling (Leicester), Chris Robshaw (Harlequins), *Billy Vunipola (Saracens), Mako Vunipola (Saracens), David Wilson (Bath), Tom Wood (Northampton), Tom Youngs (Leicester)
BACKS: Chris Ashton (Saracens), Brad Barritt (Saracens), Mike Brown (Harlequins), Freddie Burns (Gloucester), Danny Care (Harlequins), Lee Dickson (Northampton), Owen Farrell (Saracens), Toby Flood (Leicester), Ben Foden (Northampton), Alex Goode (Saracens), *Kyle Eastmond (Bath), Manu Tuilagi (Leicester), Billy Twelvetrees (Gloucester), *Christian Wade (Wasps), *Marland Yarde (London Irish), Ben Youngs (Leicester).
ENGLAND SAXONS
FORWARDS: Calum Clark (Northampton), Jordan Crane (Leicester), Paul Doran Jones (Harlequins), Will Fraser (Saracens), James Haskell (Wasps), Tom Johnson (Exeter), Graham Kitchener (Leicester), George Kruis (Saracens), Kearnan Myall (Wasps), David Paice (London Irish), George Robson (Harlequins), Ed Slater (Leicester), Henry Thomas (Sale), Thomas Waldrom (Leicester), Luke Wallace (Harlequins), Rob Webber (Bath), Nick Wood (Gloucester)
BACKS: Anthony Allen (Leicester), Luther Burrell (Northampton), Elliot Daly (Wasps), George Ford (Bath), Jonathan Joseph (Bath), Jonny May (Gloucester), Ugo Monye (Harlequins), Stephen Myler (Northampton), Jack Nowell (Exeter), Charlie Sharples (Gloucester), Joe Simpson (Wasps), David Strettle (Saracens), Mathew Tait (Leicester), Joel Tomkins (Saracens), Richard Wigglesworth (Saracens)
* new members
