11 hours ago
10
Last weekend, France launched a new shirt.
Antoine Dupont, Louis Bielle Biarrey and Matthieu Jalibert, along with footballers Djibril Cisse and Hugo Ekitike, featured in a glossy advert, external for the powder-blue retro number France will wear against England on the final day of the Six Nations.
By contrast, England, for this weekend against Italy, have opted for the bibs.
Their new-look backline's only experience together is in training singlets in practice.
Look instead for smaller combinations within the whole and you find only thin threads of understanding.
Fly-half Fin Smith and inside centre Seb Atkinson came up through the Worcester youth system and featured in six first-team games together half a decade ago.
Smith and outside centre Tommy Freeman are both at Northampton, although Freeman is more usually deployed on the wing, rather than midfield, at club level.
Atkinson and wing Tom Roebuck were both part of England's Test series win in Argentina.
And, er, that's about it.
Seven players from six different clubs and a whole lot of unknowns.
Head coach Steve Borthwick has, in the past, zeroed in on the continuity, cohesion and the long-term lessons imprinted by the white heat of a Test match - but was citing different evidence this week.
"Much of this backline has trained for four or five weeks together and trained very, very well," he said.
"I say again how much I value what I see in training. I say it to the players, that I'm watching every bit of training and I value performance in training. This is a very strong message about the ethos within the England team, that you will be rewarded for performing in that sense."
It is a stark shift. But then England's downturn over the past two games has been dramatic.
England were not even close to Scotland and Ireland in the past two rounds, losing by 11 and 21 points.
They didn't just chase the wrong gameplan, make poor decisions and show little signs of being able to switch strategies. Individually they were also under-powered, low on energy and coughing up basic errors.
It has been a collapse on multiple fronts. Two defeats shouldn't, in theory, weigh so heavy against the 12 wins that preceded them, but it is the manner of England's losses that has shaken belief in their long-term plans.
After the defeat by Ireland, captain Maro Itoje addressed his team in a huddle on the pitch.
"Success isn't always linear… success doesn't always go like that," he assured them, tracing a smooth upward line though the Twickenham air.
"Sometimes it goes like that," he went on, his hand then working a more erratic, undulating route upwards.
"Through hard work, though consistency, we'll get it back on track. Keep faith in what we're doing, keep faith in each other."
