England World Cup squad: Steve Borthwick set to take Marcus Smith to France

England head coach Steve Borthwick says his closing 33-man squad for the World Cup is “rather obvious” with finest “one or two locations” to be finalised.

Borthwick, who names his squad on Monday, said he’ll take three scrum-halves and hover-halves to France.

The choice methodology Marcus Smith and Danny Care are seemingly to be picked.

“Many of the 33 are rather obvious. There are clearly one or two locations written in pencil which need to be written in pen,” Borthwick told BBC Sport.

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For the 2019 World Cup head coach Eddie Jones turned into allowed a 31-man squad and first and well-known attach took two scrum-halves, calling up Ben Spencer as an harm change for the closing, with Owen Farrell and George Ford as his hover-halves.

Farrell, Ford and Smith are the hover-halves in Borthwick’s most up-to-date coaching squad, whereas Care and Leicester Tigers’ Ben Youngs and Jack van Poortvliet are the scrum-halves.

With World Rugby rising the squad dimension for the 2023 tournament, Borthwick says all six are all seemingly to commute.

“I assume it is rather obvious given I basically contain kept three scrum-halves and three hover-halves within the course of the camp,” he said.

The top coach additionally confused out that website online flexibility is “incredibly helpful”, prioritising players able to play in extra than one roles.

“There’s a necessity to have the option to adapt,” he added. “We are going to contain to dwell that within the course of this tournament and we contain got kept our squad rather tight between every of our camps when it comes to the different of players we contain got had in camp.

“I’m basically wide awake that there is going to be a necessity for the players outside the 33 that shall be named on Monday to be ready to be the next man in. What I witness with this squad now might well presumably maybe be that they’ve constructed togetherness and conditioning and a characteristic readability that somebody can slot into the 33.”

World Cup can be ‘dream near lawful’

On Saturday, hover-half of Smith will open his first sport for England since their yarn residence defeat by France within the Six Countries.

However, the Harlequin does now not dwell on that sport, or losing his starting up website online to Saracens’ Farrell the next week.

“It turned into a tough day to be a fraction of and I basically contain discovered a form of lessons from that,” said the 24-yr-aged. “It has positively build me in a considerably better website online as a particular person and as a participant on the pitch.”

Sale Sharks hover-half of Ford missed the Six Countries thanks to harm but turned into referred to as into camp to lend a hand prepare for the France sport, and on Saturday is set to play his first England Test since March 2022 off the bench.

With competitors alongside Farrell and Ford rising, Smith has loved Borthwick’s openness in making obvious “the pecking show” but is now not taking for guaranteed his website online within the World Cup squad.

“Monday is a wide day but there are aloof a few days to shuffle,” he said. “I am going to journey Friday’s team lag after which the weekend. Cardiff is a assorted website online to play and I’m very grateful to play for England again.”

The Harlequins playmaker additionally said it’d be “a dream near lawful” to play for England at his first World Cup.

“It’d be rather surreal to be lawful,” he added. “I have not basically opinion about it. I will now not outline my emotions lawful now but fingers crossed for Monday. It might well presumably well imply so much to me in my opinion and my mum, dad and two youthful brothers who contain sacrificed so much for me rising up.”

England open their World Cup campaign towards Argentina on 9 September in Marseille, with three extra warmth-up games following Saturday’s match towards Wales.