ANTHONY WATSON

BAD NEWS for English rugby fans? Anthony Watson was overhyped through the course of the World Cup. The good news is that he retains the ability to be a significant player at France 2023, not to mention the more impending 2020 Six Nations.

To many, his return to the World Cup squad was a triumph in itself. If the ruptured Achilles tendon suffered in the 2018 defeat at the hands of the Grand Slam-winning Ireland team wasn’t bad enough, the ‘re-rupture’ after the failed first surgery threatened to destroy his hopes of making a second World Cup. There was a quad injury, just to threaten the rush for tournament fitness, but Watson made the final training camp and he made the flight to Japan.

Thereafter he did not make that many headlines. He was more the attendant, swelling scenes in which men like Maro Itoje and Manu Tuilagi grabbed the centre stage and with it the spotlight. Yet it was