The latest weekend in the Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup, presented the aspiring England hopefuls with one last opportunity to impress Steve Borthwick ahead of this week’s squad selection for the 2024 Six Nations. The England head coach puts pen to paper this coming Wednesday 17th January, with the training group confirmed at 10 O’clock.
After starting their European campaigns so prominently, it was a rollercoaster weekend for the Premiership clubs across the two competitions. Wins for Northampton Saints, Exeter Chiefs and Bath sees the trio remain undefeated in the Champions Cup, and secure their spot in the Last 16. They are joined by Harlequins, after the Londoners racked up a landslide win over Cardiff in the weekend’s ‘battle of the capitals’.
Bristol Bears and Leicester Tigers are a weekend away from qualification, yet last season’s Premiership finalists Saracens and Sale Sharks, both face the drop into the Challenge Cup. Both sitting at fifth in their respective pools, defeats to Bordeaux-Begles and the Stormers, puts the Champions Cup campaigns in peril for the two titans of English rugby.
Gloucester achieved a long-awaited win in the Challenge Cup, as they secured the comeback against Edinburgh. However, Newcastle Falcons stretch their losing streak to 14 games in a row, after defeat to URC high-flyers Benetton. Before we await the results of next weekend’s Champions and Challenge Cup fixtures, we will find out the England squad for the 2024 Six Nations. And for these five hopefuls, all they can do now is wait.
Here are five England hopefuls who impressed last weekend, ahead of Steve Borthwick’s Six Nations squad announcement on Wednesday.
1. Tom Pearson – Northampton Saints
We start off the top five of ‘Borthwick’s bolters’, with a duo of Northampton Saints talents following their dominant win on Friday evening. The East Midlanders ran roughshod on Aviron Bayonnais, as they tallied up nine tries in the 61-14 drubbing. The first Northampton star on our list is back-row Tom Pearson, who took the headlines with a hat-trick of tries against the French visitors. Pearson was cut from Borthwick’s squad ahead of the 2023 Rugby World Cup, and wants to return to the fray after his sole cap to date, which came in last Summer’s defeat to Wales.
Pearson’s first score came straight from the training ground, as he looped around the back of a line-out, caught the ball at pace and exploded through the helpless tackle attempts for the try. The flanker secured his brace just seven minutes later, with his close range power game on display once more against Bayonne. The 24-year-old’s third try was the pick of the bunch, as he interlinked with Tommy Freeman on the left touch-line, and offered the key supporting line to execute a neat two-on-one move and complete a wonderful hat-trick.
Speaking after the match, Northampton Director of Rugby Phil Dowson was delighted with Pearson’s efforts, in his continued push for the England squad:
“He’s a very driven guy. We knew that when we signed him, and (from) the conversations we had with him. We are starting to continue to push, and we’ll continue to get loads of feedback from our coaches as well as England. He’s athletically a bit of a freak, and so therefore, you have loads and loads of technical detail, because he’s coachable, and he gets better.”
2. Tommy Freeman – Northampton Saints
The second Saint who has staked an undeniable claim for an England return, Tommy Freeman looks well on his way back into the international fold for the 2024 Six Nations. A key contributor in a multitude of positions, Freeman can excel on the wings, full-back and centre, which makes him a valuable ‘utility’ asset to have within Borthwick’s toolkit. Where he will run out for England is difficult to predict, yet fans and pundits alike are clambering for his addition in the number 23 jersey at the very least.
Freeman starred on the right wing in the thrashing of Bayonne, and contributed the opening try of the match just one minute after the whistle had commenced the action. A hot start saw Rory Hutchinson chip the ball into the Bayonne back-field, and Freeman reacted first to gather and ground the ball for the try. Freeman was last seen in an England jersey back in the 2022 Autumn Internationals, for a first half run out against the Springboks. In what was his fourth cap, Freeman had previously played under Eddie Jones against the Barbarians, and emerged as an England test player in the 2022 Summer Tour, against Jones’ future side of Australia.
Eager to return to the international scene, Freeman spoke after his Player of the Match performance against Bayonne, about how he has grown up from the “rookie” that England fans first watched ‘down under’.
“I think my mindset going in to Australia and previous camps, I still felt very young. Everything kind of coming my way I was taking it just as it came. Whereas, I think now it’s not about just kind of taking a chance, it’s about you want to take your chance and stay in the frame, you don’t want to be kind of sitting on the fringes, which I felt like I probably was. I want to be right in the thick of it and hopefully stay there.”
“I think there’s a little bit maturity as well. I think (as) I’m getting older, I’m no longer the young rookie kind of thing. I’m now a little bit older, and I think as you get older, these decisions become a bit more clearer and easier.”