The making of Smith: Swagger, confidence and the ability to carry teams
England fly-half ’s mentor at Brighton College recalls a prodigy whose gift for playing on instinct was crafted in Asia
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To pass through Brighton College’s handsome quadrangle, into the manicured playing fields beyond, is to become rapidly acquainted with the institution’s rich rugby pedigree. The Wallabies are just finishing a training session, as head coach Dave Rennie waxes lyrical about the setting.
Keeping watch close by is Nick Buoy, who for five years acted as mentor to a certain Marcus Smith, whose starting place against Australia underscores his billing as one of the most electrifying young flyhalves England have unearthed.
Smith’s captivating recent displays, not least the 28-minute cameo at Twickenham that produced a try and five conversions against Tonga, are balm to Buoy’s soul. “Marcus is the player we remember here, showing a very similar style,” he says. “He has that same swagger and confidence about him, without being arrogant. He looks like he’s playing schoolboy rugby again.”
It is de rigueur for the nurturers of great sporting prodigies to emphasise the rawness of childhood talent. With Smith, the story is not quite so straightforward: by the time he arrived at Brighton at 13, he was already a player of immaculate polish for his age, having first been taught his craft at the expat Centaurs club in Singapore. A primary education in south Asia was crucial in encouraging Smith’s gift for playing on instinct.
Both his father Jeremy, a banker, and his Filipino mother Suzanne, then a flight attendant for Cathay Pacific, asked only that he invested himself in whatever his passion happened to be. It was sage advice, with Smith showcasing skills that his contemporaries could not even begin to replicate. When an 11-yearold pitched up at a summer school at Brighton College, taken during a family holiday, Buoy could barely believe what he was seeing. All the signature elements of the Smith style today – the improvisation, the sidestepping, the precocious aura – were taking shape before his eyes.
“He had a real gift for making people around him better. He’s able to carry teams with him, as you can see with Harlequins,” Buoy says. “He can establish momentum, bringing people into the game and giving them belief.”
The sports scholarship that Smith earned to Brighton proved an auspicious move. Quickly, Buoy and his
fellow coaches could start adding strategic smartness to his natural vision. “We created a lot of adaptive environments, where he had to problem-solve, to think quickly. His brain works so quickly that his ability to beat the game is very high. As his teachers, we were trying to push him. Now he has the ability to see things perhaps other players don’t.”
Eddie Jones glimpsed this spatial awareness up close, attending one of Brighton’s matches in the week before masterminding Japan’s unforgettable upset of South Africa at the 2015 World Cup. He watched all of 20 minutes before telling Buoy: “This kid can play.” Not that the Australian has singled out Smith for any preferential treatment with England, drawing an ill-advised comparison with Emma Raducanu, the US Open tennis champion, to warn him about the temptations of fame. But to talk to those at his alma mater is to sense that Jones is warning the wrong person.
“Although we’re proud of what he’s doing on the pitch, we’re prouder of everything he’s doing off it,” Buoy says. “You can see that his team-mates are really fond of him and he comes across brilliantly in interviews. As a teacher, that’s what’s most important: that you produce a good person.
“Academically, Marcus was accomplished, and very involved in his house, too. He played first XI cricket even though he had so many international age-group commitments in rugby. He was the top runscorer in his final year.”
All told, this is a family of sporting polymaths. Smith’s two brothers, Tomas and Luc, have become established members of the rugby community in the Philippines, strengthening their connection with their mother’s native land. Marcus, meanwhile, took to cricket so readily that, at 14, he was the youngest on record to keep wicket in the Sussex Premier men’s league.
His sporting lineage is beyond reproach, but can he produce for England under such expectation?
Buoy does not hesitate in identifying the type of rugby Smith will look to play. “Fast, exciting, spontaneous,” he says. “There will be a couple of mistakes. Not that we would call them mistakes at school. Here, they are ‘learning opportunities’: chances to push the boundaries, to see what you can achieve. Marcus loves pushing himself to his limit. He’ll just play in the moment. He doesn’t necessarily know what he’s going to do, so the opposition has no chance.”
At a time when Jones’s England are under pressure to rediscover the joy, Smith’s contribution is, with good reason, the most restlessly awaited of all.