Matt Dawson’s column: “Steve Borthwick played blind with bench pick”

Steve Borthwick or his players have never spoken about it, but we are now two years away from the Rugby World Cup in Australia.

There will be a few players who will play a lot of rugby over the next couple of years who have not yet been selected, such is England’s impressive strength and depth.

The key selection in the 25-7 win over Australia on Saturday was Borthwick giving the nod to the stars of the successful summer tour to Argentina.

You’re talking about the highest levels of international team sports when you have benches like the one in England – which includes six British and Irish Lions tourists.

For a very long time, England has not had a bench like this.

I can’t see Borthwick continuing to be that strong off the bench, because when you play against better teams, you need that experience, strength, skill and finesse from the start of the game.

After all that graft in the first 60 minutes, if you’re Australia and you see the Lions front row featuring Ellis Genge, Luke Cowan-Dickie and Will Stewart coming in, you’re thinking, ‘Oh my God’.

You also have the individual brilliance and ability of Henry Pollock – able to hold the ball one-handed and be in the right place at the right time to score a vital try.

It is a wonderful weapon, and is now being deployed in a strategic and successful way.

Looking at the England squad – and we’ve been saying that for a while – there’s something a little different about the makeup, the talent, the desire to be part of the expanded squad, the culture within it.

Everyone is invested, and everyone can see and enjoy the success England is having at the moment.

Hooker, number eight, half-half, fly-half, centre-half and full-back are often key positions for great success at the World Cup.

The consistency in these positions shows they are ready to qualify for the World Cup, and it will be interesting to see how Borthwick plays this autumn.

I think the full-back and fly-half positions are still very much available and a little bit in midfield, but Tommy Freeman had a really good start to his Test career as a 13-year-old.

Maybe having two or three fly-halves for different styles and different oppositions is the way forward. The same can be said about the back row.

Borthwick played him blind in his selection against the Wallabies, who were as bad a performance as I’ve seen from them.