Barbeary impresses England coaches as he returns to full fitness

Uncapped back rower Alfie Barbeary has returned to England training with forwards coach Matt Proudfoot pleased with what he’s seen from the 21-year-old.

The Wasps forward had been side lined due to a hamstring problem but returned to full training today.

Former front rower Proudfoot was pleased with the impact the bulldozing No.8 has made in camp this week.  

He said: “Alfie had a slight hamstring problem, he trained really well today which brought him through his whole process. He’s coming through rehab, and he performed really well over the last two days.

“Yesterday he had a modified session and today he took part in the whole session. He made a real impact, and you know he’s been itching to play. The boys have been really getting stuck into him on the side. He’s been wanting to train, and he had a very good session today.

“It’s good to see a young man come in and put his best foot forward for selection.”

What particularly impresses the England coaches is Barbeary’s unique skill set and how the back rower is able to influence himself upon games.

Proudfoot said: “I think Alfie’s got a unique skill set, he’s a young man that I think refuses to say no. He just wants to go forward with the ball, and that’s what we saw today.

“He just wants to inject himself into the game, he looks for opportunities to influence and there were a couple of opportunities today where he really put himself in a good position.”

Over the course of the past two seasons, Barbeary has excelled for Wasps, notably scoring a hat-trick against Leicester Tigers in his Premiership debut in 2020.

His line breaks, offloading and try scoring caught the eye of Eddie Jones who named in his squad for the Autumn Nations Cup final against France later that year.

Barbeary’s emphatic displays for the Coventry based side even produced calls for his place on the 2021 British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa as a bolter.

Despite not appearing yet for England, Jones gave him the ‘no brainer’ advice to make the permanent transition from hooker to back row due to Barbeary’s impressive physicality.

Unfortunately, Barbeary has endured nightmare injury problems at Wasps, missing most of this campaign through a series of hamstring injuries.

But Barbeary returned to the side in epic fashion, scoring on his return against Munster and dotting down for further tries against London Irish and Toulouse in recent weeks.

Barbeary will be welcomed back to full fitness with open arms by England after enduring disastrous injury problems going into Saturday’s Calcutta Cup clash with Scotland.

Captain Owen Farrell and star wingers Jonny May and Anthony Watson are ruled out of the tournament, while Manu Tuilagi won’t feature until at least the third round.

In the forwards the situation is no better as both Courtney Lawes and Jonny Hill are both out of they Saturday’s game, while Sam Underhill faces a lengthy layoff with a concussion.

Written by Ben Jaycock