{"id":515536,"date":"2025-10-20T23:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T23:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/515536\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T23:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T23:12:10","slug":"childish-six-england-players-blacklisted-by-steve-borthwick-page-2-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/515536\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Childish&#8221; &#8211; Six England players blacklisted by Steve Borthwick &#8211; Page 2 of 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zach Mercer<\/p>\n<p><strong>Club:<\/strong>\u00a0Toulon (joined 2025)<br \/><strong>Caps:<\/strong>\u00a02<\/p>\n<p>Mercer\u2019s move back to France with Toulon ends any short-term England hopes. After tearing up the Top 14 with Montpellier and being crowned Player of the Year, his return to Gloucester was supposed to relaunch his Test career.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Borthwick barely looked his way. Now, by heading back across the Channel, Mercer has effectively ruled himself out of England selection under current RFU policy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RUCK Verdict:<\/strong>\u00a0England\u2019s loss, Toulon\u2019s gain \u2014 one of the most dynamic No 8s around.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Cokanasiga <\/p>\n<p><strong>Club:<\/strong>\u00a0Bath Rugby<br \/><strong>Caps:<\/strong>\u00a016<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been eight years since Cokanasiga first pulled on an England shirt. The comparisons to Jonah Lomu were unfair, but his blend of pace and power is still unmatched.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s shown flashes for Bath, but inconsistency and injuries have stopped him cementing a Test spot. Borthwick remains unconvinced.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RUCK Verdict:<\/strong>\u00a0The fans adore him \u2014 the coaches don\u2019t. Time is running out to prove them wrong.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ruck.co.uk\/childish-six-england-players-blacklisted-by-steve-borthwick\/3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CONTINUES ON PAGE THREE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Like this:<\/p>\n<p>Like Loading&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"sd-link-color\"\/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zach Mercer Club:\u00a0Toulon (joined 2025)Caps:\u00a02 Mercer\u2019s move back to France with Toulon ends any short-term England hopes. After&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-515536","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"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115409029950106509","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515536","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=515536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}