The 'spot on' reason why Bristol retain full faith in Max Malins

Steve Borthwick wasn’t interested in inviting Max Malins to Monday’s three-day England camp ahead of the Autumn Nations Series, but Bristol can’t get enough of the 27-year-old who has started the 2024/25 Gallagher Premiership season on fire.

Stationed at full-back, he is already four tries up just two games into the campaign and on the hunt for more when the Bears visit Bath on Saturday.

It is Malins’ second spell at the club and the curiosity is that while his first spell fuelled his Test-level introduction in 2020/21 and catapulted him towards a healthy haul of caps, his Ashton Gate return from Saracens following the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France has seen him tumble down the international pecking order under Borthwick.

The last of his 22 caps was won in September last year, Malins starting on the wing versus Chile in Lille. There was some training in the early weeks ahead of last summer’s tour but he was frozen out when the squad was officially picked for Japan and New Zealand and he again finds himself surplus with preparations set to begin for the Autumn Nations Series.

That snub won’t stop the praise he is currently receiving at Bristol, though. “Everyone always talks about Max and it is certainly true in his last couple of games, he is always trying to get better,” enthused director of rugby Pat Lam.

“He reads the games so well. All the superlatives, the reasons other people talk about Max, he is certainly spot on there. We love having him, he loves playing at full-back, he slips into first receiver a lot, works really well with AJ MacGinty, so certainly we are going to need him and all our big players to step up this week if we are going to be successful down there.

“Like all of them, everyone continues to work on their skills. The confidence when you are an international player, you have been around a long time and you know the game. That is most important. But you are constantly tapping up on your skills and all the bits and pieces you need, whether that is high ball, carrying into contact, tackling to be the best and making sure they know that if they stop doing any of that stuff they will regress.”

If the need arises in-game at The Rec or elsewhere in the coming weeks, Lam would even have no hesitation slotting Malins in at out-half. “He is the next cab off the rank. When AJ was away with America in pre-season he ran lots at 10.

“Young Sam Worsley had picked up a niggle, so Max stepped into there and pretty much every week he is either playing at full-back or if AJ is having a rest, he will jump into first receiver which helps his game. He enjoys that and is alternating between both.

“The Harlequins games last year when we lost Callum Sheedy after 20 minutes or earlier than that, he ran the show because the way our game is, the 10 gets fed a lot of information. It’s all simple so if people are in the right shapes it makes it a lot easier for the 10 and if you have someone that is dangerous like Max and AJ, it certainly helps them.”

Also of assistance in the early weeks of the new league season has been the so-called Dupont law which has opened up additional space for rangy runners such as Malins to exploit. “With most teams, you just know you have a bit more space and are always conscious where someone is kicking the ball from,” suggested Lam.

“We have seen it. I thought Leicester took advantage of it last week and other teams have. The guys in the backfield know that people up there in the front can’t just stand up there which is a brilliant change. It was crazy some of the situations that happened in games, so fair play to World Rugby and the people behind bringing in these laws.

"Most of them are on trial in the Rugby Championship and down under. I think we have just got three up here but hopefully all of them come in because it is all about speeding the game up and making the game more entertaining for the viewers which is class.”