"Whatever England do well, much of it will emanate from Chessum"

A foil to Maro Itoje, a successor to Courtney Lawes, an option out wide. Leicester's Ollie Chessum should be placed at the heart of the England team, argues Stuart Barnes

- STUART BARNES

BEFORE THE World Cup, we singled out Maro Itoje as the player who needed to rediscover his finest form if England were to have any chance of success, however that be defined. After a few seasons as a shadow of himself, the Saracens lock eked his way back to something close to his best. The net result was a Springbok pack nullified to the extent that England came within two points of making the World Cup final. Even the great Eben Etzebeth was subdued.

England were not a good side, they didn’t play much progressive rugby in their run through the soft part of the draw to the semi-finals and the rain was a major factor in dragging a South African team with far more range and variety of styles down to the extremes of England’s one-dimensional rugby.

And yet while it was undisputedly ugly rugby being played, it was effective.

The semi-final was also cruel on Ollie Chessum. The Leicester second-row, who had recovered from a fracture dislocation of the ankle in the build-up to the Six Nations finale against Ireland, lost his starting berth to his Tigers team-mate, George Martin. Whatever coaches tell you about the psychology of Test rugby in the era of one to 23, it’s a rare man who is happy to miss the first 50 or so minutes sitting on the bench.

That’s what Chessum was asked to do. In rugby’s more basic parlance, Chessum was ‘dropped’ for his team-mate, Martin. Yet here we are, a fresh year on from a campaign that divided English rugby opinion and I’m going to suggest that it is Chessum– the man who stands tall at 6ft 7in and weighs in at 18st 8lb – who is now central to England’s new Six Nations campaign.