Portugal Colonial - Dingwall glad to be 'the glue' of England's back-line against Italy

The 25-year-old Northampton centre won the last of his two caps during the 2024 Six Nations but will now start alongside four of his club-mates from the Premiership champions in the backs after England coach Steve Borthwick dropped Henry Slade from his starting side to face the Azzurri.

Slade, dropped from the matchday 23 entirely, and benched full-back Marcus Smith paid the price for a misfiring attack outscored three tries to one by Scotland last time out at Twickenham, albeit England did win 16-15 to regain the Calcutta Cup.

That was England's second straight one-point win after a 26-25 defeat of France that revived their title challenge following an opening loss to Six Nations champions Ireland in Dublin.

While the experienced Elliot Daly has been drafted in at full-back, it is Dingwall who, in Borthwick's words, has been tasked with being the glue that holds England's backs together.

"He's said that to me before," Dingwall told reporters at England's training base in Bagshot. "I've been told that a lot to be honest and I don't really see it as a negative thing.

"One of my aims for this weekend is if I can go in and help everyone in that team play better than that's a success for me. That's how I see the glue element of it, how I can tie everything up and bring out the best in other people."

"At times it could be doing some ugly stuff to open up space for other people. It's what you see and how you talk, if you can feed as much information to the people either side of you then hopefully they can make really good decisions."

- 'Intelligent player' -

Given Borthwick's public enthusiasm for deploying both Northampton fly-half Fin Smith and Harlequins star Marcus Smith in the same back division, his decision announced Wednesday to recall Dingwall after a lengthy absence from the Test arena was a surprise.

But former England captain Borthwick hailed Dingwall's quality by saying: "Fraser's a really smart player. He's a really intelligent rugby player. And I think he makes other players around him play better because of his presence."

Borthwick hopes Dingwall can inspire England, who've never been beaten by Italy, to a victory that will see them keep pace with as yet undefeated Six Nations leaders Ireland ahead of next weekend's final round of matches.

"There's loads of elements to it, but largely it comes down to knowing who's around you, knowing what they're good at," said the modest Dingwall.

He will be surrounded by familiar faces against Italy on Sunday with Northampton team-mates Alex Mitchell and Fin Smith inside him at scrum-half and fly-half, with their fellow Saints stars Tommy Freeman and Ollie Sleightholme the England wings.

"Having five of us in there is pretty cool for us and also the club," said Dingwall.

"Connections you have off the pitch massively help how you communicate with each other and how you can review things very quickly. There's an understanding of how each other plays and how to bring out the strengths that each other have."

A.P.Maia--PC