There is a scheme England are contemplating for Northampton Saints wing Tommy Freeman to do more in the centres but no-one is sure when.
While Flood praises Slade and Lawrence for doing what they are told for the sake of the team, he tells The i Paper: “These two centres, pre-tournament, were probably looking to be involved in the Lions tour, but I think they’ve done nothing – and that’s not against them; that’s not them having made errors or that’s not them having not tried to put their hand up. They have just not had the opportunity to do so. I can imagine their level of frustration is really high.”
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Read MoreThe one-point narrow squeak against the Scots last weekend was the 13th match in a row for the Slade-Lawrence centre pairing, since February 2024.
“It is right to highlight the centres, and I think if I’m Ollie Lawrence and I’m as big and strong as he is, and can do as much damage as he can do, I’d be very frustrated with the amount of times I’ve touched the ball in the previous three games,” Flood says.
“England aren’t playing much rugby, and that was always going to be the case. Steve’s mantra from playing and coaching at Saracens 2008 to 2015, when they were pretty successful, was they just bullied you and battered you, and swarmed you defensively, and they may have scored two or three tries on your errors.
“But if you watched Fin Smith at fly-half in the last attack when Scotland got pushed back, the majority of his passes would have been to a forward, not a back. The centres have probably touched the ball from his hands once or twice, hardly at all. I read the stats and I see Fin Smith making more tackles than he did passes, and that in itself is an insight into why they’re not getting the best out of everybody, including the centres.”
Mike Tindall highlighted to the same newspaper how Scotland gave their No 13 Huw Jones a run straight off a five-man line-out: “That is where England do not create those opportunities for people to have a go.”
Tommy Freeman is an option at centre – although he prefers to play as a winger (Photo: Getty)He believes Borthwick needs to change for the team’s good, and the future of the coach. The tight approach was acceptable for another of Flood’s former teams, Newcastle Falcons, in a relegation fight, or England with “the stimulus of a World Cup game, knowing it might get you into a semi-final or a final”, but “very different to a Six Nations game, or having to do it for 25 games in a row, whatever Steve’s been involved in. It’s not necessarily manageable forever when you start losing again and people start questioning the set-up and the desire from Steve.”
Flood says: “It takes a coach willing to allow mistakes, because mistakes are fundamentally what happens most with attack. Maybe there is scope on the summer tour for him to go and explore with attack they can take into the autumn – although the problem is the key decision makers and key components to your attacking system could be away with the Lions in Australia.”
But Lawrence’s club do not see him that way, and there aren’t many others around.
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Read MoreBath regard Ojomoh as a ball player, and Lawrence and Butt as power runners. When Butt and Lawrence played together this season, it worked because they had Tom de Glanville at full-back as an auxiliary ball-player.
Giving Lawrence one-on-ones would surely be what he would enjoy. In the narrow defeat by New Zealand in November, England scored one breakaway try by the now injured Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, and Lawrence made just two carries, while posting 27 tackles.
Maybe the most buzz has been around Freeman, who has been playing for Northampton and England on the wing this season – but last season he started 10 times for Saints as a No 13, and Borthwick does see that as a possibility for the national team. Greenwood wrote that Freeman could replicate the switch made by New Zealand’s Rieko Ioane.
Northampton’s director of rugby Phil Dowson told The i Paper this week: “Wing is primarily where we see him [Freeman]. But on any given weekend, depending on injuries, depending on opposition, depending on all sorts of different factors, we would be more than comfortable to switch him.”
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Read More“We have discussions around that, and Steve’s been very good with that communication channel,” Dowson said.
“Tommy always excites me, whatever role he’s in. He can carry, he’s a big man, he’s fast, he can pass the ball. He’s got nice skills, he’s got a soft touch, decent offload. He can zip a pass.
Lawrence swapped jerseys with Slade during England’s autumn series, so Lawrence now has the No 13 he normally wears for Bath, and which Slade has so often been seen in for Exeter. Is the problem here that England are picking two No 13s in the same team?
This illustrates how and maybe why England should change in their remaining Six Nations matches. They could use more multi-phase play, otherwise how can Lawrence carry the ball? Unless he receives the ball in the first phase, he is unlikely to get it. To do this, the team and the coaches need to be excited by the thought of those opportunities.
There also has to be room for decision-making, and reading the opposition defence. Butt for England A last week was positioned to hit the ball up but he saw the Irish defence backing off so he played it out to back-rowers Alfie Barbeary, Tom Pearson and Greg Fisilau. The snazzier distribution came from Ojomoh.
Flood summarises it with a favourite anecdote: “It depends on what you have in your repertoire. I always joked that I looked like the best decision-maker on the planet, because I’d have Manu Tuilagi short, his brother Alesana out the back who was twice the size, and Vereniki Goneva in the middle – and any one of them could go through a hole.”
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