England will consider 7-1 bench, props covering hooker and back-rowers at centre

Telegraph

23-07-2025

England are moving closer to selecting seven forwards on the bench and are even training props to deputise at hooker as head coach Steve Borthwick aims for maximum flexibility within his matchday 23.
Deploying a seven-one bench split would be a first for an England side at Test level, with the tactic having been used less than 10 times in international rugby generally after Rassie Erasmus's Springboks pioneered the trend in a warm-up match for the 2023 World Cup.
Borthwick has long been an admirer of positional versatility and also of forwards heavily outnumbering backs among his replacements, owing to the levels of attrition and distances run among back-rowers at Test level, often opting for a six-two bench split.
Indeed, the head coach has selected a traditional five-three bench split in only one Test this year, and that was for the latest; a 40-5 victory over the United States which could have been interpreted as squad rotation of sorts after a long tour and a 2-0 series triumph in Argentina.
Borthwick and his coaches are exploring the seven-one split as a way of including as many back-rowers as possible in a matchday squad.
England are seriously well stocked in that department: Tom Curry, Henry Pollock, Ben Earl and lock-hybrid Ollie Chessum are all with the British and Irish Lions; Ben Curry, Sam Underhill and Tom Willis started both the Test victories in Argentina; Guy Pepper was influential off the bench against Los Pumas, and Chandler Cunningham-South was hugely impressive in the win over the US. Ted Hill was the other back-rower on tour while Jack Willis remains ineligible owing to playing club rugby with Toulouse.
Such back-row riches will leave Borthwick with serious selection quandaries in the autumn, when all of his Lions have returned.
In order to best use the talent at his disposal, coupled with relatively light second-row stocks, Borthwick is exploring how to fit as many back-rowers into his squad as possible.
Cunningham-South covered the second row in Argentina, with Alex Dombrandt used as centre cover alongside Cadan Murley; Hill was an emergency bench lock during the Six Nations while Earl has featured for both England and the Lions at centre, although has never started. All of Underhill, Ben Curry, Pepper, Dombrandt and Cunningham-South were on the field at the end of the victory in San Juan.
After the series-clinching win, Borthwick said: 'Longer-term, with how many good back-rowers we've got – the list is long – it makes sense to have as many of those players in the squad, in a six-two, potentially a seven-one, as possible; especially when we have the positional versatility that we have. [Alex] Dommers [covers centre] really well and we've seen Ben Earl do it in the past. I want to keep building that as I see six-two as the long-term plan, to get as many of these good players in.'
South Africa, the inventors of the seven-one, and France, are the only two Test nations to have employed the tactic – and to great success.
The Springboks are the World Cup-winners and selected seven forwards as replacements, their bomb squad, in the 2023 final victory over New Zealand; Les Bleus won the 2025 Six Nations and did the same in the final three rounds of the championship.
In March, Telegraph Sport revealed how Gregor Townsend, Scotland's head coach, had raised concerns about the seven-one approach at official World Rugby meetings but that the global governing body had no plans to outlaw the tactic, insisting that there was no medical or scientific evidence against it.
All bases covered
For further squad flexibility and positional versatility, Borthwick also confirmed that his coaches had had a 'discussion' before England's second Test against Argentina as to whether Jamie George's absence from the squad could be covered internally.
George dropped out on the morning of the match owing to his Lions call-up and Theo Dan had to be helped off with a knee injury during the game.
Borthwick called up hookers Gabriel Oghre and Jamie Blamire in the ensuing days but revealed that there had been some consideration for internal cover given the long travel time for the duo and the fact that there was just one match, against the US in Washington DC, remaining.
'We had that discussion,' said Borthwick. 'It's something that I've spoken about previously, with Asher [Opoku-Fordjour] playing both sides of the scrum. We are exploring the possibility, as we develop some of these younger props, of them being able to play hooker, too.
'We've seen that done. The one that jumps out straight away would be [loosehead] Cian Healy for Ireland against Scotland and [South African back-rower] Deon Fourie. Although we're not at that stage yet, these kinds of things [help] at World Cups... it's part of our project planning, as well as seeing which back-rowers can play in the centre, to allow us to go six-two, potentially seven-one.'