The English Team vs Fiji – Autumn Nations Series Preview

Similar to the silver birches around my home during this season, England in the autumn are a mixed offering. Their appeal stems from transformations and natural progress, before the inevitable atrophying dumps of loads of mess all over the place demanding extensive tidying efforts while feeling irritable. And it’s started raining.

England's coach Steve Borthwick aims to transform this scenario and it’s started OK for him. The first triumph over the Wallabies in the current autumn series surpasses the results from 2024, when three miserable losses were punctuated by a bog-standard win over Japan serving as the conclusion in the last week. Considerable discussion occurred during the post-series slump that the opening trio of NZ, Australia and Boks meant the fixtures were front loaded to a fault, and a trend of unhappiness trailed each match result. This year, valuable lessons have been absorbed, with the win over the Wallabies followed with today’s outing against Fiji offering an opportunity to reinforce the good feelings.

England has fielded a significantly altered lineup from the previous week, which, due to the quality in the Fiji roster, could be viewed as arrogance by the coach. However, even though the Fijians are far from pushovers, they often find it tough in encounters with England. Their lone win in nine tests against today's rivals came during the 2023 World Cup warm-ups.

The English side is widely regarded as the most efficient in dispatching opponents they ought to overcome easily; they remain the only side undefeated by Italy in the Six Nations for example, with infrequent losses to second-tier teams.