LILLE, France (AP) — Steve Borthwick's triple-playmaker plan worked well against Chile as England delivered its best display at the Rugby World Cup so far.
In a match that sometimes looked like a training run, Owen Farrell, George Ford and Marcus Smith showed on Saturday they can share the field and deliver.
“We have fantastic options,” Borthwick said after his team made it three wins out of three matches in Pool D.
Farrell returned at flyhalf in a much-changed England side and showed great understanding with Smith, who started at fullback for the first time in place of the rested first-choice Freddie Steward.
After coming off the bench and impressing in previous matches, Smith scored two tries in the 71-0 win.
Ford joined the pair for the final half hour, when England submerged the South Americans.
“To be part of that backline today was special,” said Smith, who was playing his first game for club or country at fullback. “Those two have been really influential in my career, and to be out there at the same time was an honor.”
Farrell converted eight of England's 11 tries and created multiple dangerous attacking situations.
“There are two good players on the pitch there and it is always good to have communication,” Farrell said about playing with Smith and Ford.
“I enjoyed being out there and I thought Marcus played really well," he added. "I thought the decisions he made were good, I thought he looked dangerous constantly as he normally does. Marcus played well and George added when he came on as well.”
Although it was winger Henry Arundell who grabbed the spotlight at Stade Pierre-Mauroy with his five tries, Smith's enthralling performance at fullback embodied England's transformation from a timid side obsessed with kicking into a more playful team.
“It's my job to feed the information into the 9s and 10s, and 12s,” Smith said. “I've tried my best to work on that over the last few weeks, and to have two ball players inside who are really skilful makes my job really easy. And they managed to find me a few times, I really enjoyed running in the wide channels.”
Arundell was impressed by Smith’s ability to switch so easily from flyhalf to fullback.
“Marcus is a fantastic player," the winger said. "You can see the game-breaking stuff he can do, whether that’s at 10 or 15. I can see him playing scrumhalf at some point, he’s that good. It shows the depth we have in the squad that we can change the backline, the team, and put a performance like that out.”
Borthwick, who had been criticized ahead of the match for England's lack of ambition, was pleased with the progress he saw ahead of his players' final pool game against Samoa in two weeks.
“What you see is a team that is starting to sharpen, a team that is starting to come together," he said. "That has always been the plan.”
___
AP Rugby World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby
