Borthwick to name England's autumn squad minutes after Harlequins game
Steve Borthwick will name England's training squad for the autumn campaign within minutes of the final whistle at Harlequins on Sunday, 25 October.
The timing is tight. According to The Guardian, Borthwick will have his players for only a couple of days after the Premiership derby weekend, the local rivalry matches in England's top club league. Then they return to their clubs for a domestic fixture. Preparation is short, just as it was a year ago. In past years, England have had an extra week together before the autumn games.
That matters for a coach who has to build a squad fast. Players arrive from different clubs, with different injury histories and different loads on their bodies. Training time is limited, so the squad choices carry extra weight. Richard Wigglesworth, one of the England assistant coaches, will be part of the work ahead of the games.
The selection questions are familiar. Who fills the front row, the props who pack down in the scrum? Who gets a chance at the highest level? Borthwick has picked new faces before. In January 2026 he called up three uncapped players, meaning men who had never played for England, including two props, for the Six Nations. Borthwick knows the process from both sides. He captained Martin Johnson's England for 20 consecutive Tests, and he was later dropped from the 32-man elite squad himself, in July 2010. Johnson had also included uncapped players in his autumn squad back in 2009.
Why the autumn matters goes beyond the next few results. At the 2023 Rugby World Cup, South Africa won the trophy without scoring more than 16 points in either the semi-final or the final, according to The Guardian. Only New Zealand topped 40 points in a knockout match at that tournament, against Argentina in the semi-final. England scored 30 points against Fiji in the knockout rounds, the next-highest total after New Zealand. Both semi-finals at the 2019 tournament in Japan were won with 19 points.
Those tight, low-scoring games point to a squad that can grind out a result as well as run riot. The next World Cup adds an extra knockout round, which means more games that can be decided by a single mistake or one good set piece. Whether that lesson shapes England's picks is a question for Borthwick, not a settled fact. The set piece is the lineout and scrum, the moments where teams contest the ball and restart play. Those are also where a coach can gain or lose ground quickly.
What happens next is simple. England's players will hear their names on Sunday night, and then the squad gets a few days to become a team. Whether that is enough time will show on the pitch.
