Inside Line: England scrum-half candidate Alex Mitchell lays down another marker

Forcing your way into the England side is a far more strenuous task than actually playing yourself out of it in 2021, but at least Alex Mitchell has attended enough England squad call-ups that the coaches should recognise his face, first heading to Pennyhill Park as an apprentice, then later as a full squad member covering injuries.

One of those players who you feel has been around forever and yet scarily is still only 23, on Friday night against London Irish the Northampton Saints scrum-half excelled once more, scoring two tries.

Chris Boyd, Mitchell's coach at Northampton, went as far as to tell Telegraph Sport last summer that Mitchell "is potentially a world-class player. Using a cricket analogy, he does not have many runs on the board, but he is extremely high potential."

There were glimpses of that potential being fulfilled with an all-round performance against Irish that earned Mitchell player of the match, thriving in a fairly unstructured game at Franklin's Gardens.

Attacking threat

Mitchell is 5ft 10in, the same height as Ben Youngs, yet he seems taller and more physical and more of a carrying threat, and a large part of that comes down to his pace.

In the build-up to his first try when Saints are attacking down the right, Mitchell slips out of Terrence Hepetema's tackle, before cutting inside Paddy Jackson. The offload that followed was a little loose, but it put Irish on notice regarding Mitchell's threat with his footwork.

His first try sums up how Mitchell can use that footwork to worry defenders. The couple of steps he takes here off to the right create doubt - do defenders jump in for the tackle at the risk of leaving space for the support runner chasing an offload or a quick pass, or do they hold their ground - bearing in mind that Mitchell has already beaten a couple of defenders a few phases beforehand.

He's also in a favourable situation given he's up against two tight-five forwards, prop Lovejoy Chawatama and young lock Chunya Munga, and there's noticeably a decent hole of space for a carrier to crash into.

Mitchell takes those couple of steps to his right, meaning both Munga and Chawatama go with him. You can see below potential carrier Alex Moon coming into shot. Everything points to Mitchell passing for his lock to hit the space...

Instead, Mitchell cuts in, ducking under Munga's tackle and through an outstretched arm by Chawatama, with the prop then recovering well to bring Mitchell down thanks to some help from Blair Cowan. The only issue is, Mitchell isn't held, so the scrum-half gets up and dives for the line.

The second try on the other hand is raw pace, but again Irish are caught out by focussing on the threat of a pass, which gives Mitchell the extra time to run into the space and race clear for the try.

Notice Dan Biggar looping round to the blindside to create that three-on-two mismatch. Ben Donnell, the Irish flanker breaking off the scrum, and Irish scrum-half Nick Phipps are the two defenders split by Mitchell's speed.

It's an unenviable position for Paddy Jackson, the covering defender, trying to stop Mitchell at full tilt, and when Mitchell recognises the try is on, he seems to dip his head ever slightly, going up another gear to burn off Jackson to hit the line. Overall, it's a smart exploitation of the extra space out wide by Mitchell given Irish at that point had wing Ben Loader in the bin, forcing full-back Tom Parton to come up into the front defensive line.

Vision and skill-sets

Sam Vesty, the Northampton attack coach, told BT Sport after Friday's win that while Mitchell has vision to spot space to go with his acceleration, he's also put in "a boat load of work" on the basics.

Nice as both of those tries were, this pass in the build-up to Fraser Dingwall's try was brilliantly executed. From a bit of unstructured play Mitchell takes an offload and drifts slightly infield to the left, before swivelling to hit Biggar on a switch pass that puts the Wales fly-half through a hole. You can see the gap below being opened by Albert Tuisue drifting across, watching Mitchell.

Mitchell's pop pass - zoomed in slightly below - hits Biggar in stride and that gets Northampton in behind the defensive line into loads of green grass. It's then an easy pass from Biggar to put Fraser Dingwall over.

Mitchell's speed works well in defence as well as in attack. Tuisue, who caused Northampton plenty of problems with his breakdown work as well as his carrying, here pounces for a turnover and starts breaking upfield. Mitchell will always have the speed to reel Tuisue in, but he does well to get low around Tuisue's ankles to bring him down. This was inside the second minute and set the tone for an open contest.

Referring back to those comments about working on the basics, Mitchell's delivery when he doesn't opt to take those extra steps to fix up defenders is usually very crisp. This is a slightly different example of how good his passing is, feeding a ball through traffic past his own full-back George Furbank.

Finally, contestable box kicks. A bit more distance might have been better in the below clip, but the kick gives Ollie Sleightholme every chance of competing for the ball, even if Parton here for Irish does well to force a knock-on.

Partnership with Biggar

There's surely no better way for Mitchell to build up experience then partnering him with the fly-half who on form should probably start for the Lions against South Africa this summer.

Here's another example of Mitchell's carrying threat and that combination with Biggar, except below it didn't actually work out, with the pass from Biggar missing Sleightholme completely and going into touch.

Mitchell before breaking from the scrum points left, before running to his right. You can see how he sucks in four Irish defenders. The dummy line from Dingwall is great, and from here you would back Biggar to hit Sleightholme in stride and for Northampton to be in...

...except the pass is a shocker. You can see Biggar put his hands to his face realising it's a golden opportunity missed.

Here, to finish, is a better example of their partnership functioning. Spotting the space on the blindside, Biggar makes the call to Mitchell (arm up) to go left. Tuisue to his credit recognises the danger as well, but Irish can't rally in time.

Mitchell hits Alex Waller, who acting as the pivot then passes to Biggar, giving Francis the space out wide to finish in the corner.

Having the potential to be world class and actually being world class are of course very different things, but this was a great showcase of what Mitchell can offer with his running threat and delivery.

There will be more structured games to follow before the end of the season which Eddie Jones and his coaching staff may pay closer to attention to when it comes to Mitchell's passing and box-kicking, both of which have noticeably improved.

But that dynamism with ball in hand, either as the runner or by feigning to carry up before passing, makes Mitchell an intriguing option.

Should Ben Youngs get a call-up this summer for the Lions then Dan Robson and potentially one of Bristol's Harry Randall and Mitchell will be fighting it out for a starting spot in England's summer fixtures.

Mitchell, approaching 50 Premiership games for Northampton, is building up the right amount of experience required to take the next step in his career. It feels like the club have finally moved on from Cobus Reinach and with Mitchell and Biggar playing as they are currently, Northampton stand a good chance of pushing for the top four.