5 England Players with Most to Prove Before Rugby World Cup

England’s players have convened for the start of World Cup preparations after a somewhat tortuous build-up for coach Stuart Lancaster.

He was deprived of Manu Tuilagi’s presence by the Leicester centre’s late-night indiscretions in the city, then saw Danny Cipriani also come under investigation by the boys in blue. Cipriani stays with the squad for now, but the same cannot be said for Dylan Hartley after the hooker’s ban for headbutting.

In addition, David Strettle has decided to leave the camp and link up earlier than expected with his new teammates at Clermont Auvergne.

Lancaster will hope that is the last of the disruptions to his plans ahead of the opening game against Fiji on 18 September.

A 50-man squad must be whittled down to 31 for the tournament, so there are plenty of players with much to do to earn a spot in that slimmed down group.

Here are five with the most to prove.

Rokoduguni was a late call-up to the squad following David Strettle’s decision to drop out.

The Saracens man’s switch to Clermont has prompted him to place his focus on his new club career rather than fight for a place in the World Cup squad.

And that opens the door for the Bath wing. The military man was picked on merit to start against New Zealand in the autumn, but injury curtailed his part in the rest of that series.

His form for his club was less explosive in the middle portion of the season as injuries hampered him, but Rokoduguni finished the campaign strongly and appears to have been the next man out of the holding pen.

The Telegraph’s Mick Cleary wrote:

There is no sense that England’s prospects have been diminished by Strettle’s withdrawal. Rokoduguni was in blistering form for his club as they pushed towards a place in the Aviva Premiership final, recapturing the zest and self-confidence that was the hallmark of his play before his winning his first, and only, cap against the All Blacks in November. Injury bedevilled his progress thereafter but there is little doubt that, at full tilt, Rokoduguni adds to England’s attacking options.

Some might find it surprising that he was chosen ahead of Christian Wade, who ran in a hat-trick for the England side picked to play the Barbarians in the annual season-ending showpiece. So Rokoduguni needs to prove he was worth the call.

England’s first-choice pair of Jonny May and Jack Nowell have not exactly been prolific during their time in the side but have played well.

Anthony Watson has proved a more potent finisher when used at either wing of full-back, and Chris Ashton’s record for his club has been impressive this season.

If his perceived defensive problems prove to be a thing of the past, Rokoduguni has a long list of men to surpass in order to get the nod.

The proverbial sword of Damocles hangs over Danny Cipriani’s involvement in the World Cup.

The fly-half was arrested on suspicion of drink driving in May and awaits the outcome of the police investigation knowing it will impact one way or the other on his chances of making the final 31.

Stuart Lancaster has reserved judgement on the 27-year-old until then, per the Guardian, and the Sale man remains part of the expanded squad that will go for training in Denver.

So, aside from trying to promote himself ahead of George Ford and Owen Farrell in the race for the No. 10 jersey, Cipriani must also prove he can keep his nose clean off the field.

Lancaster operates a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to misdemeanours away from the action.

We have already seen Manu Tuilagi fall foul of that stance, and Danny Care has also served time out of the picture for his own extracurricular wrongdoings. Cipriani knows eyes are on him 24/7, both on and off the field.

You get the sense Stuart Lancaster has been itching to pick Sam Burgess in his final World Cup squad.

The former NRL star had a patchy beginning to his union switch. He started out at inside centre and made some good busts, a few signature offloads and scored a nice try thanks to some good lines of running.

But there wasn’t exactly a forest of uprooted trees scattered in his wake.

That may have been a ridiculously high expectation to have had of the 26-year-old who was learning a new sport. So he was then switched to the back row and seems, at least in Mike Ford’s eyes, to have settled there in the Bath No. 6 jersey.

That he doesn’t look out of place at all after half a season is a credit to his natural talent in itself. But what does it mean for his England chances?

He is listed on the squad page of the RFU website as a centre. But early fantasies of Burgess as the answer to England’s No. 12 problems seem to have faded from view with his progress as blindside flanker. Is he good enough to fulfil either role if needed? He told the Telegraph recently:

“At six, I get around the ball a bit more; it’s very similar to the way I played league. But each team plays differently. In the system at Bath, it suited the team better for me to play six towards the back end of the season. But I enjoyed my time at 12 as well.”

To have one man covering two positions would be a good asset to the squad. Or, to view it another way, is Burgess not yet accomplished enough to jump ahead of more experienced players in either area?

He has this summer to answer those questions. If he trains well enough he must surely be given at least two opportunities in the three warm-up tests to see if he can step up to full international level.

In training and those games, it would surely be better to keep him in one position rather than risk falling between two stools.

Amid the plaudits for England’s stoic, workaholic skipper Chris Robshaw, and the clamour for Steffon Armitage’s recall, the qualities offered by Matt Kvesic of Gloucester went largely ignored, at least by the rugby public outside Kingsholm, that is.

Kvesic is the only genuine No. 7 in the 50-man party; a ground merchant, a scavenger at the breakdown.

England face players just like that in both key Pool games, Sam Warburton of Wales and Michael Hooper of Australia. And they may well need to consider going like for like to nullify those men.

Former Gloucester defence coach John Muggleton certainly thinks Kvesic could be the man to do that job, per the Western Daily Press:

Muggleton, who has been replaced by Jonny Bell as the club's defence guru, believes the genuine open-side can give Stuart Lancaster's men another dimension. He said: ‘It's very important defensively but also in attack because your seven against teams like Australia has to be good at stopping their opposite number.'

Uprooting the team captain this close to the tournament seems unlikely, but Kvesic has the chance to prove himself worthy of a place as the man with Plan B up his sleeve. If England start getting slaughtered at the ruck, he would be handy to bring off the bench.

There are two challenges for Lions hero Alex Corbisiero to overcome this summer.

The first is to stay fit for a prolonged period.

Ever since his starring role as a late call-up who became a key component of the 2013 Lions scrum, the New York-born Saints loosehead has been beset by injury problems, most recently departing early in Northampton’s Premiership semi-final defeat to Saracens.

His wretched injury record saw Joe Marler take the opportunity to cement himself as a reliable inhabitant of the No. 1 jersey with Saracens’ Mako Vunipola playing the role of impact hell-raiser and Wasps’ Matt Mullan also improving as a genuine challenger for the shirt.

And so the second is to climb back up the pecking order.

In Corbisiero’s favour is the way he bulldozed the Wallaby scrum in that 2013 series. When he was ruled out of the second test, Vunipola replaced him and struggled horribly.

If fit, it will be tempting to deploy Corbisiero against Australia to see if he can repeat the trick against a side known the world over as having a vulnerable set piece.

A summer away from the treatment table and marmalising the scrummage machine is required for the former London Irish man to reclaim his throne.