England’s first-choice back three stares Borthwick in face after Australia rout

Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, Tommy Freeman and George Furbank can make an impact at next year’s World Cup, providing they can all stay fit

Rugby, at its heart, is a simple game. Win the collisions and you’ll more than likely win the match. Rule the skies, own the floor and the chances are you’ll end up on the right side of the ledger. Put square pegs in square holes and you can achieve the sort of attacking fluidity required for a record score against Australia. The complicated bit, once you stop trying to put them in round holes, is keeping those square pegs fit.

England’s emphatic win over the Wallabies on Sunday was the first time in two years Borthwick has been able to field a back-three of Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, Tommy Freeman and George Furbank. It was also the first time ever that they have lined up with 11, 14 and 15 on their respective backs. It will not be the last but it was a fleeting glimpse nonetheless. Feyi-Waboso sustained an ankle injury that will rule him out for the rest of the autumn campaign. Furbank has a groin problem that will keep him sidelined against Japan and given Borthwick is considering resting some players, it may be Freeman sits out on Saturday. It could conceivably be an entirely different back three against Eddie Jones’s side.

Given how serious it is, Feyi-Waboso’s ankle injury was the major blot on England’s copybook against Australia. His time on the field was both a reminder of how devastating a runner he can be and how susceptible to injury he is. Feyi-Waboso’s handling was not perfect but it took him about 90 seconds to showcase the threat he possesses when scoring his disallowed try, cruising through a gap prised open for him by Fin Smith.

In his 40 minutes on the pitch, Feyi-Waboso made 130 metres from his eight carries, demonstrating time and again how elusive he is. As Borthwick remarked after Sunday’s victory, the game favours attacking sides who can keep making ground and keep recycling the ball at present, and in Feyi-Waboso England have someone who will always ensure opposition defences are scrambling.

On the evidence of his showing against Australia and his previous outing with Argentina, it does not feel hyperbolic to say England become an entirely different proposition with the 23-year-old winger in the side. England’s attack coach Lee Blackett knows all about Feyi-Waboso’s threats from their time together at Wasps and with Smith purring as he did on Sunday, the fly-half has the ability to unleash Borthwick’s most dangerous runner.

The trouble is, it has not happened often enough since Feyi-Waboso made his debut in early 2024. Now that he is out of the rest of England’s November Tests, he will have managed just 17 appearances in England’s 36 matches since and including his debut come the end of the year. A hamstring injury threatened his involvement this autumn, it was the same issue that forced him to miss the Six Nations and a shoulder problem that ruled him out of the Championship 12 months earlier. He has not managed to string together more than five consecutive starts for England in his career.

Furbank, meanwhile, made his first appearance for England on Sunday since the 2024 autumn victory over Japan. His run of bad luck with injuries has been astonishing – struck down by appendicitis when finally set to make his comeback over the summer – but the gracefulness with which he played against the Wallabies was a joy to watch. Wearing white boots to match his kit only added to the impression that Furbank glides across the pitch. His break to set up Jack van Poortvliet’s try was the champagne moment of an effervescent display, a reminder of what England have missed in his absence. The hope must be that he is fit to face the All Blacks on Saturday week.

Freeman’s “second debut” for England came in the same match in which Feyi-Waboso won his first cap, having been overlooked for the first 12 months of Borthwick’s tenure. He went on to cement his status of one of the world’s leading wingers, before Borthwick persevered with attempting to reinvent him as an outside-centre. Given Freeman has started the past three matches back on the right wing, it seems common sense has won the day.

In the two years since they all last lined up together, England have tried all manner of combinations. Freddie Steward and Tom Roebuck enjoyed a degree of success when aerial supremacy was all the rage, but it does not feel like a coincidence that during England’s worst Six Nations campaign this year Feyi-Waboso was injured throughout, Furbank was overlooked and Freeman was often deployed at centre. For the first defeat by Italy, not one of them appeared in the back three.

With 11 months before England’s World Cup opener against Tonga, however, Borthwick has his first-choice back three combination now staring him in the face. The perfect blend of stylish playmaker at full-back, a robust, ultra-consistent performer on one wing, a game-breaker on the other.

England’s budget does not stretch to the amount of cotton wool required to ensure they all make the plane to Australia next year, but there are echoes of the 2019 contingent of Elliot Daly, Anthony Watson and Jonny May with the current trio. If victory over a woeful Wallabies side told us anything it is that England have a set of outside backs to make the rest of the world sit up and take note once more, provided they can all stay fit. The problem is it remains a big if.