England fly to South Africa on Wednesday with a squad that is equal parts buzzing and broken. Two days after Northampton's 26-17 Premiership final win over Exeter, Steve Borthwick's Nations Championship group is being finalised for a tour that opens against the world champions at altitude on 4 July, with Fiji and Argentina to follow.
Henry Pollock embodies the mood. The 21-year-old capped a season of 29 competitive games — on the back of last year's British & Irish Lions tour — with a man-of-the-match display in the final, and he is itching to return to the country where he won a junior world title with England Under-20s in 2024.
"We've got three big, big Test matches," Pollock said. "Obviously the Six Nations didn't go our way and we are still hurting from that a little bit. I'm buzzing to get into camp and be around the boys again. There is no bigger challenge than going to South Africa and playing away at altitude in one of the biggest stadiums in the world. Those are the things you dream of."
Not every South African is enamoured of his on-field swagger. Pollock's response was unbothered: "They can talk all they want — I guess I keep showing up." He knows the work is not done: "I know in the back of my mind we've still got a job to do in the summer ... You want to go away and play against the best in the world."
The freshness Borthwick craves is in short supply. Exeter wing Immanuel Feyi-Waboso somehow played the final just 17 days after surgery on a broken jaw.
"We were planning on the first game being hopefully South Africa," Feyi-Waboso said. "Even then the chances of my jaw healing probably wouldn't be high. We all sat down with the surgeon and they just laid the information out to me. They said that [with] a direct blow to the jaw it's likely the repair is going to fail, but you can try."
He came through it. "It's still a bit sore to touch but when the adrenaline's pumping and you've got some painkillers you're all right. I'm just happy the jaw stayed intact and it hasn't jeopardised my chances to be away with England."
He was not the only one running on fumes: Greg Fisilau played on with a cracked eye socket and Archie McParland finished with a lacerated knee, while scrum-half Alex Mitchell is working back from a hamstring problem.
That attrition has hardened Borthwick's plan to rest captain Maro Itoje. The 31-year-old led the Lions to a series win in Australia, played through the autumn and Six Nations, and mourned the death of his mother across a punishing year in which he has logged more Test minutes than any player over the past decade.
"Maro's circumstances have been very specific and the right thing to do, in a best-case scenario, would be for him not to be with the England squad this summer," Borthwick said. "Maro had a period this year where he was injured and had to deal with a personal situation on the back of captaining the Lions ... Any discussion with a player about missing an opportunity to represent their country is challenging. Maro is fully on board with the plan."
Even so, Borthwick will hold his nerve until the last moment. With only Ollie Chessum and Itoje as specialist locks should George Martin or Alex Coles break down, he conceded he may yet have to think again.
The other live debate is at fly-half. Fin Smith steered Saints to the title without a flawless final, and ReadRugbyUnion argued that is precisely his appeal: where George Ford offers the calmest organisation and Marcus Smith a change of tempo, Fin Smith increasingly looks like the player who can link England's power game to a more ambitious attack. Borthwick, for his part, wants his players battle-hardened. "I want players playing in as many big games as possible because that is good for the England team," he said, "but each decision is taken on an individual basis."
