Why England have not had a consistent centre partnership since 2003

England and centre partnership struggles seem to go hand in hand and, this autumn, it has been the turn of Henry Slade and Ollie Lawrence to be the latest pairing to lack balance and cohesion.

However, by England standards, Slade and Lawrence should be a well-oiled machine. Statistician Russ Petty caused eyes to pop after unearthing that these two have now started nine consecutive Tests in tandem and only once since 1990 have a pair of England centres rolled through more matches successively.

That was between 1991 and 1993, when the duo of Jeremy Guscott and Will Carling chalked up 13 straight appearances. In the process, they won back-to-back Grand Slams.

To compare Lawrence and Slade to Guscott and Carling probably feels sacrilegious to many England supporters, at least in part because the current combination is not quite clicking. A switch of shirt numbers before the loss to Australia always looked like a superficial adjustment. It just accentuated how England are fumbling to bring out the best in Lawrence and Slade outside Marcus Smith.

The closest that the pair have looked to the sum of their parts was during the defeat in Lyon at the end of the Six Nations, with George Ford at fly-half. It might have helped that Nicolas Depoortère, the France centre opposite them, was winning a second cap.

On paper, Slade and Lawrence have plenty of enticing ingredients. One is a skilful passer with a sweet left boot who has been tasked with leading an aggressive defensive line in the 13 channel. The other has become a tough and industrious defender at 12, and can carve dangerous angles from slightly wider positions. Between them, they have won the Premiership player of the year award for the past two seasons.

In practice, however, fluency is missing. And that leaves head coach Steve Borthwick in a tricky stick-or-twist scenario. Will time and patience improve this area, or is change necessary? If it is any consolation, he would not be the first to experience a headache over this particular midfield conundrum.

Many would claim that England have not had a truly elite centre partnership since Will Greenwood and Mike Tindall, the 2003 World Cup winners. Over the past decade or so, there have been strong campaigns here and there. Remember Billy Twelvetrees and Luther Burrell during the 2014 Six Nations? Manu Tuilagi went well alongside both Owen Farrell and Henry Slade. But being able to rely on an England midfield? Rare.

According to Stats Perform, England have fielded 52 starting centre combinations since the beginning of 2010. Slade and Lawrence count for two because they have been in both configurations. Among the 10 teams who compete in the Six Nations and Rugby Championship, Scotland (59), France (55) and Wales (53) have assembled more. Ireland, New Zealand (both 39) and South Africa (37) boast the fewest.

With 16 starts for England in that time, Lawrence and Slade are already second on the list, just two behind Owen Farrell and Jonathan Joseph. Some degree of upheaval is inevitable in the centre positions. Rotation and injuries are two possible explanations in an area of considerable attrition.

One source cited how Ireland, even in a recent stint of success and stability under Joe Schmidt and then Andy Farrell, have cycled between Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw, Bundee Aki and Stuart McCloskey. And, since 2010, Gordon D’Arcy and Brian O’Driscoll have still started the most matches together for Ireland, with 28.

Over the same period, Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith (44) started the most matches for New Zealand. They were back-to-back world champions. Jamie Roberts and Jonathan Davies (40 starts) were Wales’s most regular partnership and won multiple Six Nations titles. As a mark of his durability and class, Damian de Allende has started 28 times with Jesse Kriel and with Lukhanyo Am, picking up a World Cup with each of those colleagues. Consistency seems to lead to trophies. Owen Farrell and Joseph registered two Six Nations titles in 2016 and 2017 to sandwich a whitewash of the Wallabies.

Returning to England’s figure of 52 combinations in the past 14 years, there are 21 duos with a single start. The partnership of Alex Lozowski and Jack Nowell (against Japan in 2018) was a one-hit wonder, as was the combination of Shontayne Hape and Manu Tuilagi (against Georgia in 2011).

Centre has been a landing spot for league converts who have not hung around: Hape, Joel Tomkins, Kyle Eastmond, Ben Te’o and Sam Burgess. Eastmond had a solitary start next to Joseph, in a 51-26 victory over Argentina in Salta. That was despite their dazzling 2014-15 season for Bath, with Burgess in the back row.

Tuilagi’s catalogue of injuries hardly leant itself to stability either. From his Test debut in 2011 up until last year, he was sporadically reintroduced and asked to cause havoc. His last World Cup summed it up perfectly. Tuilagi and Joe Marchant ended up as the first-choice partnership for 2023, having only picked up two starts together before that tournament. Forget building over a four-year cycle.

Regardless of how much one reads into shirt numbers and specific roles, centre selections also reflect a coach’s tactical outlook and can be subject to tweaks. Owen Farrell’s move to 12 saw him start 53 Tests with nine different centre partners: Joseph (18 starts), Tuilagi (12), Slade (10), Brad Barritt (3), Te’o (3), Guy Porter (3), Marchant (2), Elliot Daly (1) and Lawrence (1). Slade has had 12 different midfield accomplices. Nothing has been as constant as change, which will be part of the reason that Borthwick has held firm.

We can dig deeper and examine the apparent difficulty of developing inside centres. In Borthwick’s current squad alone, all four of the specialist midfielders – Lawrence, Slade, Lozowski and Luke Northmore – are more comfortable at 13. Tommy Freeman and Elliot Daly, capable of covering that position but probably not 12, are there too.

Historically, there does look to be an issue with the ability of inside centres to move up the pathway. Sam Hill and Harry Sloan were the starting 12s when England Under-20s won the World Championship in 2013 and 2014. Hill struggled for game-time after moving from Exeter Chiefs to Sale Sharks in 2020 and is currently with Houston SaberCats in Major League Rugby. Sloan bounced from Harlequins to various loan clubs before heading to Ealing Trailfinders and then Saracens. He is now with Agen.

Johnny Williams, who helped England to the 2016 Under-20 World Championship, was capped by Wales. The same happened to Nick Tompkins. Another England age-grade graduate, Cameron Redpath, opted for Scotland. This is part of the reason why it is dangerous to blame foreign signings, such as André Esterhuizen, for blocking prospective England-qualified players (EQPs) from Premiership appearances. Because there are candidates.

Over the first six rounds of the Premiership season, 37 of 60 starting slots at 12 have been filled by 14 different EQPs: Will Butt (Bath), James Williams, Joe Jenkins (both Bristol Bears), Will Rigg (Exeter Chiefs), Seb Atkinson, Charlie Atkinson (both Gloucester), Lennox Anyanwu, Luke Northmore (both Harlequins) Dan Kelly, Joe Woodward (both Leicester Tigers), Sammy Arnold, Cameron Hutchison (both Newcastle Falcons), Sam Bedlow (Sale Sharks) and Josh Hallett (Saracens).

*denotes England Qualified Player

That is without counting potential inside centres who started in the 13 shirt, such as Fraser Dingwall and Kelly, or that have come on as replacements. Rory Hutchison, a Cambridge-born graduate of the Northampton academy who has become a Scotland international, accounts for six of the starts made by non-EQP 12s. Wales international Tompkins, a homegrown product of Saracens, accounts for five more.

The top level is ferocious and unforgiving. Mistakes are costly. Because of that, England head coaches trust their idea of a “Test-quality” centre. Another source bemoaned that coaches have “over-indexed on power”, which would partly explain the fetish for Tuilagi and code-hoppers from rugby league. They also decried the lack of intuition, guile and assertive communication skills among English centres. There does appear to have been a creative burden on fly-halves, rather than centres. Philosophical selection dilemmas at full-back – Mike Brown or Alex Goode, Freddie Steward or George Furbank – are connected here.

It is not unfair to suggest that Farrell was handed the 12 shirt, alongside both George Ford and Marcus Smith, to ensure that England had at least two playmakers and as many hardened internationals on the field as possible. This has spelt bad news for other players.

There were ample opportunities to cap Tompkins and Redpath. Kelly is a fascinating case. Part of Borthwick’s preparations for the 2023 Six Nations, he suffered a thigh injury and has not looked close to adding to his one cap subsequently. Only 23, he is out of contract at Leicester in the summer and has interest from Ireland, whom he qualifies to represent. Otherwise, Anyanwu, name-checked by Borthwick earlier this year, is bound for Montpellier. There are also question marks over whether Benhard Janse van Rensburg would become eligible for England in 2026.

Bath’s Max Ojomoh is clearly earmarked for higher honours and Olly Hartley of Saracens, a strapping athlete, returned from knee surgery in the Premiership Cup earlier this month. Mark McCall is excited about the latter’s partnership with Sam Spink. Speaking of partnerships, Dingwall and Oscar Beard complemented each other nicely in an England A team who had licence to spread the ball wide and seemed impressively cohesive on Sunday despite a short build-up to their triumph over Australia A.

It caused one to ponder whether Slade and Lawrence are not sufficiently compatible and should be unseated by Borthwick. But then that would disrupt consistency. With perseverance, could greater familiarity help it come good? Could haves, would haves and should haves have scattered the autumn and England’s past two decades of centre selection.

England look trapped in an interminable struggle hinging upon the numbers 12 and 13, with no obvious way out.