Marcus Smith

Ex-Ireland international Kieron Dawson played a key role in the young out-half's development at Brighton College.

He’s got a similar philosophy to the (Brighton) school in that it’s the players’ team at the end of the day. “Get a big 12 in there, and he’ll just fly. Smith had played over 100 times for Harlequins and was a Premiership title winner by the time he made his England debut last July, the young 10 already heralded as the next superstar of English rugby. “Obviously when he’s gone on to Harlequins that seems to have been their ethos. He wanted to work at that, and you certainly wouldn’t flag him as having a weakness in defence. “A friend of mine was running the camp and said you need to come down and look at this kid,” Buoy explains. Your fear is that at the time, he didn’t really fit the English mould. But he worked on that in school and he’s a competitive little bugger. “With my experience of playing in the game, I said, ‘Listen Marcus, don’t be OK at everything. Jones would visit Brighton again in his early days as England boss, calling up the schoolboy and telling him to bring his boots down to training. Physically, he actually couldn’t perhaps move as quickly as he wanted to, because his brain was always exceptionally quick and a real strength of his. “He stood out as just having that little bit extra.