NICK CAIN
READ HIS EXPERT OPINION EVERY WEEK

MAKE no mistake, the 2023 World Cup starts for England this weekend. Even though head coach Steve Borthwick’s team do not play Argentina in their tournament opener in Marseille for another six weeks, if the squad is to break out of the mediocrity in which it has been mired for the past three years it must rip in to the four August warm-up matches like men possessed.
It is hard to remember a lower key England build-up to a World Cup, and it reflects the low ebb of the game in this country after years of administrative bungling, ...