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#Post#: 134859--------------------------------------------------
Re: England weigh up dropping Marcus Smith for Italy clash
DIR By: deadlyfrom5yardsout
Date: March 6, 2025, 2:44 am
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So. what happens if Fin Smith gets broken?
It really is time SB took a different view and surrounded Marcus
with Quins type players and just watch him fly.
#Post#: 134861--------------------------------------------------
Re: England weigh up dropping Marcus Smith for Italy clash
DIR By: poorfour
Date: March 6, 2025, 3:09 am
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--- Quote from: deadlyfrom5yardsout link ---
>
> So. what happens if Fin Smith gets broken?
>
> It really is time SB took a different view and surrounded
Marcus with Quins type players and just watch him fly.
>
--- End Quote ---
That's the thing that really winds me up about the "Fin gets the
backline moving" conversation. Fin has always had 3-4 players
around him who play with him in his club backline. Marcus has
had Marchant. Occasionally. And usually out of position. And
then players like Malins, who looked like they understood the
plan but were consistently unable to execute.
#Post#: 134873--------------------------------------------------
Re: England weigh up dropping Marcus Smith for Italy clash
DIR By: deadlyfrom5yardsout
Date: March 6, 2025, 4:23 am
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Daniel Schofield
Marcus Smith faces ultimate test of character after he is
dropped by Steve Borthwick
England’s maverick back is already at a crossroads in an
international career that started with so much promise
Six Nations, England Rugby Union Team, Marcus Smith, Steve
Borthwick
05 March 2025 3:35pm GMT
From unassailable to unable to force his way into the starting
XV, only the shares of Blockbuster have tanked quite as quickly
as those of Marcus Smith in the space of less than 12 months.
This was a fly-half whom Steve Borthwick seemed prepared to
build his entire team around. Smith still remains the sun around
whom the side revolve, but it is Fin, with his four Northampton
team-mates, who is the centre of England’s solar system, with
Marcus relegated to the status of Uranus or perhaps Pluto.
Coming out of the 2023 World Cup, Marcus seemed ready to inherit
the throne vacated by Owen Farrell’s retirement from
international rugby. A calf injury suffered in the training camp
in Girona before the 2024 Six Nations delayed the coronation,
but Borthwick duly handed him the reins for the tour of Japan
and New Zealand.
The 26-year-old duly continued in the No 10 shirt through the
Autumn Nations Series campaign and remained in that position
entering this year’s Six Nations. A Lions starting shirt seemed
a reasonable possibility.
His excitable representatives were talking about him cracking
America like he was a member of the Fab Four in the 1960s. “We
think he can transcend the sport of rugby,” Michael Yormark, the
president of Roc Nations Sport, told Planet Rugby in January.
“He wants to transcend the sport of rugby. We’re leveraging
Marcus’ commercial partners to help in that process. We’re going
to create more content, do more PR, take him to America and do
unique activations that will hopefully broaden his following and
start to make him more relevant outside of the rugby world.”
Alas for Roc Nation, Borthwick places far more currency in
victories than he does in “unique activations” or the fact that
“he has probably the best hair world rugby” (again according to
Yormark), and in Smith’s eight-game run as England’s starting
fly-half the only opponents who appeared in his win column were
Japan. Funny as it sounds, individually he was playing well in
these circumstances, by far England’s brightest attacking spark,
but alas the back line and the wider team were not, or at least
not for long enough periods to get over the line in their run of
seven successive defeats against tier-one opposition.
The notion that England would benefit more from Fin the
facilitator than Marcus the magician started doing the rounds
and lo the latter was moved to full-back following the 27-22
defeat by Ireland. In an interview with Telegraph Sport before
the Six Nations, Marcus Smith had made clear that full-back was
only a position he would fill reluctantly. Despite one or two
bright moments from Smith, especially against France and when he
broke open Scotland’s defence just before half-time, England’s
back line continued to splutter.
So now, as Telegraph Sport first reported, Smith has been
relegated to the bench for the first time in 12 months. It is
difficult to argue that Elliot Daly did not deserve his
promotion to the starting XV, nor that he will offer a better
balance to the back line at full-back.
No matter how Borthwick dresses it up – and he did not offer the
best explanation of why he dropped the axe and how he can
extract himself from the gallows – it will still come as a
crushing blow for Smith to find himself going from the No 10 to
15 and now 23 shirt. Of all the matches, the Azzurri seemed to
be the perfect game for a second playmaker to open up spaces on
the edge, but perhaps Borthwick has cleverly preempted the storm
it would have caused leading into the always combustible Wales
week.
Parallels have already been drawn between Smith and New Zealand
utility back Damian McKenzie, who never seems to be fully
trusted by the New Zealand management to run a game from
fly-half.
Smith will fight like hell to prevent himself being permanently
cast in this type of role. Whatever anger he feels, the initial
signs are positive, according to Borthwick. “We had certain
people in, and they talked about how much each player is giving
to the team, and how well the team who’s effectively not
starting, trained to test the starting team,” Borthwick said. “I
told Marcus about selection yesterday, and he went out and
trained brilliantly, brilliantly. Which is immense credit to him
as a person.”
Clearly, Smith has the talent not to mention the hair, but now,
having faced the biggest setback of his career so far, he needs
to prove he has the temperament.
#Post#: 134908--------------------------------------------------
Re: England weigh up dropping Marcus Smith for Italy clash
DIR By: T-Bone
Date: March 7, 2025, 6:30 am
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I think you certainly could argue that Daly doesn't deserve to
start. You could use the evidence of the 70 odd appearances to
justify not starting him, instead of the 5 mins and training
ground move try against France
#Post#: 134910--------------------------------------------------
Re: England weigh up dropping Marcus Smith for Italy clash
DIR By: 22 Dropout
Date: March 7, 2025, 10:28 am
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Uranus. Ouch.
So basically they played starters against bench and he ran rings
around them.
Italy are capable of doing this too...
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