Rugby World Cup: England v Samoa - Ben Earl's long road to Test prominence

After 15 straight appearances as a replacement, Ben Earl is set to start for the sixth time in seven England matches against Samoa on Saturday

The first time Chris Morgan felt there was something special about Ben Earl, he felt it in his hands.

Morgan, director of sport at Tonbridge School, was gripping a ball, preparing to release. Opposite him was a 12-year-old Earl, already square of shoulder and strong of frame.

But, rather than a rugby ball, it was a cricket ball in Morgan's hand. And in Earl's, there was a bat.

"The ball was coming to me pretty hard - you might have expected a 12-year-old to be tapping it back, but he was so explosive and that manifested itself in his batting," Morgan tells BBC Sport.

"He could bowl quite fast at times as well. He bowled a heavy ball, digging it into the pitch, and when he was batting he had some finesse.

"You might expect this big, strapping back-row forward to be a bit of a slogger, but, actually, he was a left-hander, with a very classical, elegant style, but obviously could combine it with power as well."

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It wasn't just Morgan who was impressed. There is a photo of Earl a year or so later, as part of a Kent under-13 team.

In the same shot as Earl is his classmate and future Ashes lynchpin Zak Crawley. He and Earl are still close friends.

Fortunately for England rugby though, and perhaps Australian cricket, Earl opted for the oval ball.

"He had phenomenal balance, the ability to change direction at quite significant speeds and he was very explosive," remembers Morgan.

"There were very few people on the pitch who would be able to contain someone like Ben.

"If someone is big, you can get around them, gang tackle them and close the space down, but with Ben it wasn't just size and mass, it was his speed and power.

"He was kind of unstoppable."

Earl turns his arm over during a warm-up for his club side Saracens

It is all there in the videos. Earl's schoolboy showreel shows a player of uncommon agility, physicality and pace, steamrolling some tacklers and scorching past others with blowtorch pace.

But Earl's skillset made him hard to categorise. At 6ft tall, he is relatively short for a back row. His size may by an advantage securing turnovers on the floor, but it is less so in the air as a line-out option.

Tonbridge would deploy him at centre at times. Others tried to convince him to switch from the back row to the front.

"I remember an academy coach saying they couldn't find any reference points for him," remembers Morgan.

"They didn't know if he was big enough for the back row. They were thinking about him as a hooker potentially, or that they might be able to mould him into the next Steffon Armitage [the former Toulon flanker, who was 5ft 9in tall].

"I was thinking, with no disrespect, this guy is 20 times the athlete that Steffon Armitage was. It shouldn't be about what he can't do. He isn't 6ft 4in, but he is a hybrid-type player, a very modern player."

For a while it seemed Earl was a prototype who would never find a proper place on England's starting grid.

A fortnight after coming on for his international debut against Scotland in February 2020, then-coach Eddie Jones announced that Earl was covering midfield as well as back row off the bench against Ireland.

Jones, apparently having then decided that Earl lacked the heft to be a Test forward, subsequently ignored Earl's rampant Premiership form for the final 18 months of his reign.

New coach Borthwick also initially seemed unconvinced. Earl earned just 53 minutes in the 2023 Six Nations campaign, across two replacement appearances, and was sent back to his club with an instruction to get fitter.

Those were Earl's 14th and 15th appearances off the bench in an international career that stretched over more than three years but was yet to include a single start.

It could have been enough to make Earl, who is now 25, consider other options. Sam Simmonds and Zach Mercer, two similarly quick but (relatively) slight back rows, have moved to France and out of England reckoning in recent years.

Earl also entertained the possibility of a move abroad but instead stayed home and stayed the course.

"The moment that you stop performing, you give someone an easy reason not to pick you," he said in May.

He never stopped, was rewarded with his first start in England's warm-up win over Wales and has since forced his way to first choice.

Earl, whose exuberant celebrations have attracted mirth online, has been one of England's star performers at the Rugby World Cup so far

He has had more carries and made more tackles than any other England player so far in the tournament. Against Argentina, he won more turnovers than any other England player. Against Japan, he made more metres.

It is vindication for Earl's self-belief and drive to prove himself right.

Ian Peel, the Saracens forwards coach, first met Earl when he was playing for England Under-18s.

"He was super-confident around his ability," Peel tells BBC Sport. "But it is different trying to put that into a senior game.

"That is where he had his biggest work-on - that transition from being so dominant in the schoolboy game and not always getting his own way in the senior game.

"It doesn't happen overnight, but he has worked out what his super strengths are and how he can put that into a game."

Earl took on Borthwick's post-Six Nations advice. Over the past few months he has been working on a new, bespoke training regime which incorporated flexibility - to improve his stickability over breakdown ball - as well as endurance and strength work.

He now studies video to see where he can have the most impact for his team and against different opponents.

"It wasn't for him to change, to try and be something he thinks England wants," explains Peel. "He needs to be as good as he can be at the things he does well.

"Strong over the ball, strong in the tackle and linking play well - those are key elements and they are his strengths. He has honed in on those and made them even better."

Morgan agrees. The more Earl has changed, the more he has stayed the same.

"It is almost like he is being true to himself," Morgan says. "You are seeing Ben playing the way he enjoys playing."

After all the waiting, replacing and hesitating, England are enjoying it too.

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