England play Generation Game against All Blacks with overhaul of traditional order of selection

<p>Steve Borthwick has picked six British &amp; Irish Lions on his bench with a further nod to the growing importance of the endgame </p><p>Selecting your best XV to start a big rugby match feels increasingly quaint these days, as redolent of a different era as the Generation Game or Starsky &amp; Hutch. To the point where you half expect to find <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/nov/11/england-team-new-zealand-rugby-union-ford-steward-genge">the home team sheet to face New Zealand</a> this weekend has D-N-A-L-G-N-E printed at the top of it. Even with the All Blacks in town, the traditional order of selection no longer applies.</p><p>Instead it is all about the endgame. On this occasion Steve Borthwick has picked six British &amp; Irish Lions on his bench compared with only four in his starting lineup. At some point around the 50th minute on Saturday there will be a mass discarding of XXL tracksuits and a whole fresh set of white orcs will rumble on. As South Africa’s “Bomb Squad” have long since shown, it can be mighty hard to combat.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/nov/11/steve-borthwick-england-new-zealand-all-blacks-twickenham-rugby-union">Continue reading...</a>