{"id":42581,"date":"2026-05-20T04:41:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T04:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/benhard-janse-van-rensburg-steve-borthwick-explains-england-pick\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T04:41:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T04:41:21","slug":"benhard-janse-van-rensburg-steve-borthwick-explains-england-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/benhard-janse-van-rensburg-steve-borthwick-explains-england-pick\/","title":{"rendered":"Benhard Janse van Rensburg: Steve Borthwick explains England pick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Steve Borthwick says he understands criticism of his selection of South Africa-born centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg &#8211; but that his job is to build the best possible England team with whichever players are eligible.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Janse van Rensburg has previously played for South Africa&#8217;s under-20s, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/c4g0eqk2ekeo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">is part of a three-day England training camp<\/a> as he prepares to complete the five years of residency necessary to become eligible to make his debut this July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former England scrum-half Danny Care<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/c809xvl4z4zo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\"> was among those to question the decision<\/a> to pick 29-year-old Janse van Rensburg ahead of Bath pair Ollie Lawrence and Max Ojomoh, who have progressed through England&#8217;s pathway system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England&#8217;s policy of only picking players from domestic clubs means Bristol&#8217;s Janse van Rensburg is available to Borthwick, while Toulouse flanker Jack Willis and Toulon prop Kyle Sinckler \u2013 both of whom played for England at the last Rugby World Cup &#8211; are currently not at his disposal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I understand the discussion and why people would ask and question that,&#8221; England head coach Borthwick told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;From my point of view, he&#8217;s a player who&#8217;s eligible to play for England and he&#8217;s committed his future to playing rugby in England.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;My role is to help develop the best England team we possibly can, with all the players that are eligible to play for England.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Janse van Rensburg has been one of the Prem&#8217;s most consistent midfielders since arriving at London Irish in 2021, impressing on both sides of the ball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He&#8217;s a player I&#8217;ve thought very highly of for a long time,&#8221; added Borthwick.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When I was coaching at Leicester Tigers, whenever we previewed London Irish, he was such a talisman for them. I spoke to a number of people around him, and everyone tells us what a great man he is, what a fantastic team man, an incredible character.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think he brings some of the strengths that are reasonably unique. His ability to play 12 and 13, his carry threat, as well as being a distributor, and the amount of ground he covers in defence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The way he runs for his team is very impressive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/c3w27v18z7no?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Borthwick says he understands criticism of his selection of South Africa-born centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg &#8211; but that his job is to build the best possible England team with whichever players are eligible. Janse van Rensburg has previously played for South Africa&#8217;s under-20s, but is part of a three-day England training camp as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42583,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42581\/revisions\/42583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}