England head coach Steve Borthwick has revised his list of centrally contracted players, naming 25 squad members who will hold enhanced deals worth roughly £150,000 for the 2026-27 season. The announcement comes just over a year before the Rugby World Cup and marks a significant reshuffle of the elite group that underpins England's national team preparations.
Five players have been awarded elite contracts for the first time: prop Asher Opoku-Fordjour, lock Alex Coles, flanker Guy Pepper, scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet and centre Seb Atkinson. Opoku-Fordjour made his senior England debut in 2024 and has now been rewarded with a place among the centrally funded group.
Four players who previously held enhanced deals have dropped out of the latest list: flanker Ben Curry, utility back Elliot Daly, centre Ollie Lawrence and wing Tom Roebuck. Number eight Tom Willis, meanwhile, is no longer eligible for England selection after agreeing to move to France.
Why have Curry and Daly missed out?
Both players have been sidelined by lengthy injury absences over the past year, which appears to have counted against their inclusion in the newly funded group. Roebuck and Lawrence, by contrast, have simply fallen out of favour with the coaching staff after previously being regular fixtures in the matchday squad.
Roebuck's recent involvement had already looked uncertain. He was called up to replace George Furbank for a back-three reshuffle ahead of a Fiji fixture in Liverpool as England attempted to end a losing run, but his omission from the enhanced list suggests his standing in the squad has not been secured.
What happened with Tom Willis?
Willis received an enhanced contract only twelve months ago after establishing himself in the England set-up at the start of 2025, but he has not featured for his country since agreeing a surprise switch to Bordeaux for the coming season. That move has now formally ended his eligibility for national selection under current rules.
According to a national broadcaster's report on the previous round of enhanced deals, Willis was among the first-time recipients alongside forward Henry Pollock when the 2025-26 group of 25 players was announced, underlining how quickly his international status has since changed.
How do the enhanced contracts work?
The enhanced contract system was introduced in 2024 under the Professional Game Partnership agreed between the Rugby Football Union and Premiership clubs. It hands Borthwick the final say over medical and conditioning decisions affecting the contracted players, who receive a fixed annual sum from the RFU rather than being paid on a game-by-game basis.
Non-centrally contracted players currently earn a match fee understood to be around £21,000 per appearance, while those on enhanced deals receive an additional £7,000 per game for image rights on top of their fixed yearly payment. The RFU has said the contracts
help ensure the best possible preparation for the England Men's team
The system has not been free of friction. A dispute between Exeter and the national team over the handling of wing Immanuel Feyi-Waboso's shoulder injury in late 2024 and early 2025 exposed early tensions in how club and country manage contracted players' welfare.
Per The Independent, the original rollout of the enhanced scheme covered just 17 players, including senior figures such as Jamie George, Maro Itoje and Henry Slade, and was reported to run through to 2028 when it first began. The squad has since grown to the current 25-player group.
How has selection shifted over the past year?
Lawrence's absence from the enhanced list fits a wider pattern of selection instability around him. A rugby news outlet, Ruck.co.uk, reported that Feyi-Waboso, Lawrence, Max Ojomoh and Alex Mitchell were all left out of Borthwick's Six Nations group compared with the squad named in February, while a separate update noted that Roebuck and Lawrence were also omitted from the 2026 Six Nations squad entirely.
In May 2026, according to The Telegraph, centre Benhard Janse van Rensburg was drafted into an England training camp squad ahead of the Nations Championship, taking the place of Lawrence and Ojomoh among the outfield backs considered by Borthwick.
England's broader results have been mixed over the past year. Following a Six Nations campaign described as the side's worst since 2000, an RFU review still backed Borthwick to continue in charge, and the RFU reaffirmed its support for him despite citing discipline and execution issues during that tournament. England won just one match in the 2025 Six Nations before recovering to take two of their three fixtures in the Nations Championship in July.
What happens next?
England are scheduled to host Australia, Japan and New Zealand in November 2026, forming the northern-hemisphere leg of the inaugural Nations Championship. The fixtures will offer an early opportunity for the newly enhanced squad members to establish themselves before the Rugby World Cup arrives just over a year from now.
- 25 players have been given enhanced contracts worth around £150,000 for the 2026-27 season.
- Opoku-Fordjour, Coles, Pepper, van Poortvliet and Atkinson receive elite deals for the first time.
- Curry, Daly, Lawrence and Roebuck have all lost their enhanced contracts.
- Willis is no longer eligible for England selection following his move to Bordeaux.
- England host Australia, Japan and New Zealand in November 2026 in the Nations Championship.
