Steve Borthwick adds ‘energy and speed’ after Warren Gatland’s fitness jibes

It has been a rite of passage for every England head coach of recent times to swipe away verbal taunts from their Wales counterpart Warren Gatland, and as Steve Borthwick took his turn on Thursday, he adopted a dismissive attitude toward the antics of the old master.

Gatland used Wales’s 20-9 win over England last Saturday, in a glorified friendly in which both sides made experimental selections, to question the level of fitness of Borthwick’s squad, a month out from the Rugby World Cup.

Gatland also wrote in a newspaper column that he would have Marcus Smith as his starting fly-half, if he were in Borthwick’s position, and the volleys resumed when the Wales boss questioned whether the England players for this Saturday’s rematch, in the next warm-up game at Twickenham, might be complacent in the wake of Borthwick having confirmed the 33-man squad for the World Cup on Monday.

The last-mentioned comments – “The England players might be happy they are on the plane; we’ve got a group of players in the right headspace,” said Gatland, who is waiting until the week after next to settle on Wales’s final squad – had not yet been heard by Borthwick on Thursday afternoon as he announced a team much closer to full strength. This featured Owen Farrell captaining from fly-half, and front-line picks who are seeing their first action of the season including Courtney Lawes, Jamie George, Elliot Daly, Maro Itoje, Billy Vunipola and Joe Marler.

There is also an injection of pace with Ben Earl on the openside flank in the absence of the injured Tom Curry, and 20-year-old Henry Arundell in a new back three combination with Daly and Freddie Steward.

But on Gatland’s earlier jibes about England’s fitness, with the Welsh feeling in a good place after their summer prep in Switzerland and Turkey, Borthwick made clear his disdain for any mind games, saying: “I don’t know what other teams are doing or saying about their players or our team, I just concentrate on my team and we’re in a pretty good place right now.

“In [strength and conditioning coach] Aled Walters, with his experience of getting a team right to win a World Cup [with South Africa in 2019], we’ve got a guy who’s proven to get a team together at the right time.

“As we build towards the start of September, and the start of the tournament, the steps made are on track.”

Gatland was head coach and Borthwick his forwards assistant on the Lions tour of 2017, when they drew the Test series with New Zealand.

But they are adversaries again now, with Borthwick a few months into his first role as a Test head coach, while Gatland has been at it for the best part of 25 years, and their teams are heading for a World Cup quarter-final clash if one wins their pool and the other finishes second.

But while Borthwick insisted his team is building toward the opening World Cup pool match with Argentina in Marseilles in 28 days’ time, he has also fulfilled his promise to field something close to the top 15 this week.

England’s squad to face Wales

• 15. Freddie Steward
• 14. Henry Arundell
• 13. Joe Marchant
• 12. Ollie Lawrence
• 11. Elliot Daly
• 10. Owen Farrell (c)
• 9. Jack van Poortvliet
• 1. Joe Marler
• 2. Jamie George
• 3. Will Stuart
• 4. Maro Itoje
• 5. George Martin
• 6. Courtney Lawes
• 7. Ben Earl
• 8. Billy Vunipola

Replacements:

• 16. Theo Dan
• 17. Ellis Genge
• 18. Dan Cole
• 19. Jonny Hill
• 20. Jack Willis
• 21. Ben Youngs
• 22. George Ford
• 23. Max Malins

Curry is joined on the sidelines by the injured Manu Tuilagi, Dave Ribbans and Ollie Chessum, while Anthony Watson and Kyle Sinckler are rested. The Sale second row Jonny Hill is on the bench despite not being in the World Cup 33.

“He’s sharp, very sharp,” Farrell said of Arundell, who dazzled on his England debut in Australia last summer, then was injured in the autumn and only briefly appeared in the Six Nations.

“He’ll have to do some good work for us, in terms of getting the ball back and making sure we’re solid on both sides of the ball. But we all know what we can do with the ball in hand.

“It doesn’t feel like you have to do too much work with Henry other than to hold up the middle, and give him half a space – maybe less. We want him to be himself.”

Earl makes his first England start, three and a half years after his debut, with Borthwick praising the 25-year-old Saracen’s points of difference as “energy and speed” and an uncommon ability to link the forwards and backs.