Six Nations<\/a> as England\u2019s first-choice fly-half before being shifted to full-back and dropped to the bench due to the emergence of rival playmaker Fin Smith.<\/p>\nIn preparation for this summer\u2019s series in Australia, the 26-year-old will start Friday\u2019s pre-tour send-off fixture against Argentina in Dublin in the Lions\u2019 number 15 jersey, with namesake Fin selected at 10.<\/p>\n
Care believes his long-term half-back partner has been a victim of his own versatility and also suffered at international level due to an underwhelming season for Quins, which concluded with a seventh-placed finish in the Gallagher Premiership after a 62-0 thrashing by Leinster in the last 16 of the Investec Champions Cup.<\/p>\n
Fin Smith, meanwhile, helped Northampton finish runners-up to Bordeaux in the European competition following last season\u2019s Premiership title triumph.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s got anything to prove,\u201d former England scrum-half Care, speaking of Marcus Smith, told the PA news agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe played in the autumn internationals against some pretty good teams not long ago and everyone was saying he\u2019s England\u2019s best player and he was wearing the 10 shirt.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, I think Harlequins\u2019 form probably hasn\u2019t helped because we\u2019ve not been playing in the big games, or giving ourselves a chance in those big games this season, whereas Northampton have been playing really well and got themselves to a European final.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy belief in Marcus\u2019 ability is he\u2019s still going to get better and better; he\u2019s already incredible and he deserves everything he gets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marcus Smith was a late addition to the 2021 Lions squad as injury cover for Finn Russell but did not make a Test appearance during the series defeat in South Africa.<\/p>\n
Russell is the other fly-half selected by head coach Andy Farrell this time around, with fellow Scotland star Blair Kinghorn and Ireland\u2019s Hugo Keenan the alternatives at full-back.<\/p>\n
Following the Aviva Stadium clash with Los Pumas, the Lions will fly to Australia to prepare for Test matches against the Wallabies on July 19, 26 and August 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are three very different 10s, which I think is great for Andy,\u201d said 38-year-old Care, who will officially retire from professional rugby at the end of this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe there are games where he can pick and choose a certain style that maybe he wants to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously Marcus almost suffered from his own success in a way: he\u2019s so good at playing 15 as well that he\u2019s so interchangeable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d imagine you\u2019re going to see him in a 10 and a 15 jersey this summer, whereas the other two are out-and-out 10s.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the two Smiths took part in last week\u2019s Lions training camp in Portugal, Russell only joined the group on Monday after becoming a Premiership champion with Bath on the back of Premiership Rugby Cup and European Challenge Cup glory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been a massive Finn Russell fan ever since playing against him, seeing him throwing some of those incredible passes, unlocking our defence with England a few times,\u201d said Care, who won 101 England caps and made a record 395 appearances for Quins.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Fin Smith has come in and taken to international rugby so well. I\u2019ve been blown away by his professionalism.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a wise head on young shoulders but he\u2019s a real confident lad and it\u2019s shown again with the Lions that it\u2019s timing: if you get your timing right and you can get in and play really well in that Six Nations and your club form is good then you can find yourself on a Lions tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree different 10s to choose from and each of them would deserve a pick, so I\u2019m looking forward to seeing how they go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These are the rugby stories making headlines on the evening of Thursday, June 19Jac Morgan warms-up during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15,14260],"class_list":{"0":"post-198325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales-rugby-team"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114712522567050793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_GettyImages-2220384875.jpg\")
Jac Morgan warms-up during a training session (Image: David Rogers\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n