In the past, there would be a dirt tracker side playing midweek matches against provincial sides, ad that would be where you looked at new players, and possibly then slotted them into the test side.

But, when you are down in a test series, you ought to be playing your best players in the correct positions.

But what do I know. I just prop up the bar.

Before the first Test against Australia last Saturday, England boss Eddie Jones was in confident mood. "We haven't had the opportunity to pick a side like this for a long time," he said buoyantly. But despite being in a position to win the game against 14 men, England crashed to a 30-28 defeat after a second-half Wallaby onslaught - a fourth loss in six Test matches in 2022. ..... While Jones is desperate to develop Marcus Smith's partnership with Owen Farrell, they are very different players, with Smith part of a free-wheeling Harlequins outfit and Farrell running a more prosaic Saracens side. In Perth, Smith's club-mate Danny Care started at scrum-half, but he now drops to the bench with Van Poortvliet coming in. "It's hard for me to understand what they are trying to do, with Danny Care, Marcus Smith and Owen Farrell," former England player Chris Ashton told Rugby Union Weekly. "It is in the middle, I think, in terms of style. Owen has an opposite style [to Care and Smith] as we saw from Saracens and Harlequins in the Premiership semi-final; they are polar opposites. "So how do you just expect it all to work together? I don't know how."

and his selections turned out to be the right ones didn't they. One thing to clear up here, JvP is not Tigers third choice, his career is being managed, it's not that long ago he was playing for Leicester Lions in Nat 2. Borthwick is bringing on a whole rash of academy players and managing them in a similar vein, Chessum, Hayes and Martin are just a few examples, Steward being the exception who has taken on the role exceptionally well.