This selection headache is a welcome one for Borthwick

The challenge facing every head coach - and specifically, in this case, Steve Borthwick - is knowing the optimal moment to strip away the dead wood and to embrace the shiny and new. It is never as simple as it sounds. Clinging on to the old guard for too long is a classic error but so is blooding a group of exciting youngsters too soon.

- Robert Kitson

Which brings us to Borthwick’s delicate balancing act before next month’s autumn series. The easiest thing to do, fitness permitting, would simply be to cut and paste the names of all those who toured with the British & Irish Lions and then top up the rest of the team sheet with those who went well on England’s own summer tour to Argentina and the United States.

Easy but not necessarily the optimal answer for England’s 2027 World Cup prospects. Borthwick will be finalising his squad before the opening November Test against Australia on Saturday week and the time has arrived to make one or two fundamental decisions.

Take fly-half. Normally England would be running around in the Girona sunshine right now, fine-tuning their gameplan in their own time. But, because of the Rugby Football Union’s desire to shoehorn in an extra international outside the official window, Borthwick no longer has that precious luxury. It reduces the scope to experiment and ensures - with Fin Smith, Marcus Smith and George Ford all fit and Owen Farrell lurking in reserve - that someone is about to be seriously disappointed.