Why England's team to face Wales raises intriguing questions about Steve Borthwick's Rugby World Cup plans

Steve Borthwick has kept the phoney war of the build-up to England’s squad selection for the Rugby World Cup as straightforward as possible.

The head coach will beat the tournament deadline by a couple of weeks when he announces his final choice of 33 next Monday, having told the players the day before, and there were only 43 of them, including those who are injured, involved in training this week.

The list of the obvious inclusions is a lengthy one – the likes of Owen Farrell, Jamie George, Maro Itoje and Courtney Lawes who are not even required to play in the opening warm-up fixture, away to Wales on Saturday.

Add to this the directness and clarity Borthwick has set as his watchwords throughout the eight weeks of the summer prep and some of the juiciness of the conjecture might have drained away.

“Don’t try and think about what I’m thinking,” he has told the players. “I’ll be up front with you about where you stand, you just go out and train as hard as you can.”

And then you look at the selection for this first of four warm-up matches, with Marcus Smith at fly-half, and Alex Dombrandt retained at No 8 after a fairly ineffective Six Nations, and the debate of the style to be utilised by Borthwick in the tournament in France next month immediately cranks up again.

Smith has the talent to play to any kind of structure, but if you were to pinpoint a relative weakness, by top Test standards, it would be his kicking from hand under pressure – and most observers reckon this will be a key part of Borthwick’s gameplan for the global jamboree.

It appeared to be very good news for the 24-year-old when Borthwick confirmed yesterday that he sees fly-half as one of the positions – alongside, probably, both props and hooker and scrum-half – in which he needs the depth and security of three choices. Farrell, George Ford and Smith are the three regular No 10s in the squad preparing to be trimmed down over the weekend.

Borthwick did lob in a reference to versatility that could conceivably be interpreted as Henry Slade covering No 10 from his customary centre role, while Farrell, we know, can be an inside centre as well as fly-half.

In any case, a nagging question is whether Borthwick, who only landed this job in succession to Eddie Jones last December, is using a chunk of the 320 minutes of warm-up match-time this month by using square pegs in round holes. Smith and Dombrandt will be partnered in Cardiff by Danny Care at scrum-half in a Harlequins combo.

“The link Alex has with Danny and especially Marcus is very intuitive, they find each other,” Borthwick said. “With Joe Marchant there as well [at outside centre, with Manu Tuilagi and Ollie Lawrence rested] there are [Harlequins] players that have played a lot of games together in this team.”

Borthwick knows he has to beat Argentina and Japan, in England’s opening two pool matches, to make a convincing start to the World Cup. It could be he envisages Farrell and Ford playing throughout those matches, while Smith just holds tackle bags in training. But as the man himself pointed out yesterday with his mentions of unexpected red cards and concussion stand-downs, anything could happen.

Care said earlier this week he has developed the “control” that is likely to be demanded by Richard Wigglesworth, his erstwhile England scrum-half rival and who is now the team’s attack coach. Box-kicks and forcing territory downfield spring to mind. This is at odds with the running game that regular Quins watchers have long associated with the 36-year-old Care.

As for Dombrandt, he is not the battering No 8 in the mould of Billy Vunipola or the tyro Tom Willis, who is poised for a debut from the bench in Cardiff.

It all shines a fascinating spotlight on every move of Smith and the other England Quins at the Principality Stadium – not forgetting that Ford is waiting to be launched from the bench to renew a stellar international career interrupted by injury last year.