Mark McCall backs David Strettle for England

Sunday, January 6, 2013
6.14 PM

Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall believes David Strettle could well have played his way into an England shirt after his man-of-the-match performance against Sale.

The wing grabbed his first Aviva Premiership try of the season in the second half of this afternoon’s 32-12 win at Vicarage Road, followed shortly after by Charlie Hodgson who crossed against his former club.

Owen Farrell also kicked 22 points in the win and McCall insists Strettle could join the fly-half in the England camp when Stuart Lancaster announces his Six Nations squad on Wednesday.

“David Strettle was made man-of-the-match today and he was magnificent,” he said.

“He’s really relished this opportunity to play on the left wing and England don’t have that many natural left wingers.

“No-one’s been putting their hands up as an out-an-out starter and the last five weeks has seen some of the best rugby I’ve seen from him.

“We’d like to be scoring more tries and we’ve done that in certain games in Europe but we were dominant in the first half as well here and that is a good sign.

“We just couldn’t go more than three phases without Sale giving a penalty away - that’s not our fault - and Owen 1/8Farrell 3/8 quite rightly kicked all the penalties to build a good lead so I am not too worried about the tries.”