Sale wing Tom Roebuck has been drafted into the England squad as head coach Steve Borthwick juggles back-three options amid a raft of injuries.
Roebuck replaces Northampton full-back George Furbank, who withdrew from the starting line-up for Saturday’s 45-21 defeat by South Africa with appendicitis.
England have lost their past five Tests, with a 48-7 thrashing of Wales in February their only victory of 2026.
Anything short of victory over Fiji at the Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool on Saturday would heap pressure on Borthwick, despite recent backing from his Rugby Football Union (RFU) bosses to take the team to next year’s Rugby World Cup in Australia.
England have two significant injury concerns for their first game in the north-west since 2015.
Wing Cadan Murley, who started the defeat by the Springboks, and Freddie Steward, the squad’s only specialist full-back after Furbank’s illness, are suffering with shoulder and ankle knocks respectively.
Tommy Freeman, who was at outside centre in Johannesburg, could revert to his more accustomed wing slot, or fill in at full-back, where Marcus Smith started last weekend.
Immanuel Feyi-Waboso is likely to start on one wing, leaving Roebuck and Saracens’ teenage prodigy Noah Caluori to compete for the other berth if Murley fails to recover and Freeman is deployed elsewhere.
Roebuck and Caluori are both strong in the air, an area Borthwick highlighted for improvement after double-reigning world champions South Africa disrupted and dominated contestable kicks.
“They won seven kicks back and we won a couple back,” Borthwick said.
“That’s a big discrepancy at this level and clearly one of the big deciding factors because that gave them field position and put pressure on the team.”
Bristol’s South African-born centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg comes into contention for his first Test cap, having completed five years’ residency and been the subject of a successful appeal by the RFU over his eligibility.
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