Riding a 10-game winning run allows you some luxuries as a head coach, like Steve Borthwick being able to drop one of England’s best players this autumn purely to have a look at someone else.
Joe Heyes has played so well as starting tighthead for England that the assumption, when England named their team on Tuesday and Heyes’s name was not on there, was that he must have picked up a knock. After all, he might be England’s most improved player this year.
The Leicester prop, much like Fin Baxter on the other side, benefited this summer from Ellis Genge and Will Stuart being away on the British and Irish Lions tour. The Baxter-Heyes prop duo started together for an England XV against a France XV – let’s call that an unofficial Test match – then two Tests proper down in Argentina, still one of the more ferocious atmospheres you can end up in as a player away from home.
That exposure over the summer gave them invaluable experience. So watching Heyes pummel his way through a powerful operator in New Zealand’s Tamaiti Williams must have been satisfying not only for Borthwick but also Tom Harrison, the England scrum coach who at 34 is younger than England hooker Jamie George and earning rave reviews.
The beauty of where England are right now, having won 10 Tests in a row since losing to Ireland at the start of this year’s Six Nations and defeating New Zealand at home for the first time in 13 years, is that they can afford to tinker and tweak, to build depth. Hence the start for Asher Opoku-Fordjour, the exceptionally talented Sale Sharks prop capable of playing on both sides of the scrum, who as Borthwick hinted needs more Test minutes.
“I’ve said to Joe: ‘I’ve really been pleased with the way you have played.’ He’s scrummed well, moved well, defensively been really good. Part of this is ensuring that we have the appropriate level of depth, experience and competition amongst the squad.”
To flip the narrative a little, imagine if England had lost to the All Blacks last weekend, coming up short yet again at home after last year’s late drop goal miss by George Ford. Or had they lost to the Wallabies for a second year running. Would Borthwick be making a similar move, swapping out one of his in-form players to give an alternative option more match experience? Of course not. Winning, and winning well, creates these kinds of selection opportunities.
England’s checklist for 2026 is obvious enough: win the Six Nations (which they have not done since 2020) and defeat world champions South Africa when England travel south next summer for the opening round of the Nations Championship.
‘I want to have the right level of depth, experience and competition among the squad’
Steve Borthwick
But the wider picture with this England side is arguably more interesting. Borthwick spoke before the autumn about his team being built to run rather than bash, something he reiterated earlier this week at Pennyhill Park when discussing the squad’s improving fitness levels – “While we talk about [how] sometimes we don’t quite have the same power as an England team used to have, what we do have is this team can run” – while this time adding in an important caveat. “Does [the team] run the way I want it to now? Not at the standard I want yet, but it’s moved a long way from where it was. A player coming into this team knows he has to be able to run,” Borthwick added.
England overall are a long way removed from their state when Borthwick took charge at the start of 2023. The scrum at that point was a mess, but now feels imposing again. England no longer drop off at the end of campaigns or matches – their fitness levels are rising. Attack is the hardest system to master, but there are glimpses of that happening.
Arguably the most encouraging aspect of England’s autumn is that they have won three matches and still have so many areas to improve. The slow starts. The malfunctioning lineout early on against New Zealand. The multiple scores denied due to being held up over the line. Converting more of their line breaks – nine in both matches against both Australia and New Zealand – into more scores.
At this stage, with half an eye on 2027, what they need is for everything to be stress tested: set-pieces, discipline, injuries. England’s three starting centres from the previous three matches – Fraser Dingwall, Tommy Freeman, Ollie Lawrence – are all unavailable against Argentina. Factor in what England have achieved this autumn without two of their best locks in Ollie Chessum and George Martin, and the picture looks even better. That is why Borthwick talks repeatedly about players being able to cover multiple positions, like the back-row Ben Earl playing at centre.
The best part about facing Argentina? Any defensive lapse, any mental slip, can be punished. Just ask Scotland, still reeling from last Sunday’s nightmarish collapse at Murrayfield. Argentina’s scrum might be a weak spot but their breakdown work and their counter-attacking threat, the quality of Pablo Matera and Marcos Kremer and Julián Montoya upfront, combined with their game-breakers in the two Santiagos and Carreras, meshed with the finishing of Rodrigo Isgro and Juan Cruz Mallia, can make Argentina a nightmare to play against.
England know that from the summer, when they won twice in La Plata and San Juan, marshalled superbly at half-back by Ben Spencer and George Ford. That duo returns on what is set to be a wet afternoon, and the additions of quality kicking options to England’s backline in Henry Slade and Elliot Daly – the latter deliberately so given his prowess in the air – means even with the injury disruption, England feel composed.
Having enough confidence in England to describe them as both savvy and highly competitive against any opponent still feels slightly novel. But there is genuinely an extremely good side emerging here. And if they can make progress against Argentina while wrapping up an unbeaten autumn by securing win number 11, who knows what their ceiling is.
Photograph by Dan Mullan/RFU via Getty