England will not be able to appoint Saracens’ Phil Morrow as head of strength and conditioning in time for the Autumn Nations Series with Dan Tobin set to head up the performance programme in his absence.

As Telegraph Sport previously revealed, Premiership clubs voted 7-3 to block a proposed job-share arrangement for Morrow to replace Aled Walters while remaining Saracens’ head of performance. A proposed ‘firewall’ mechanism did not assuage clubs’ concerns over a potential conflict of interest that would hand Saracens a competitive advantage. Barring a last-minute about-turn, a compromise is unlikely to be reached.

Morrow quickly emerged as England’s prime target to replace Walters, who resigned in August to take up a similar role with Ireland. However, Morrow recently signed a lucrative long-term contract at Saracens and the cost of buying him out of that deal is considered prohibitive by the Rugby Football Union, which may have to switch targets.

In the short term, Telegraph Sport understands that Tobin, who was appointed only in September as a fitness coach to replace Tom Tombleson, will take the reins as head of performance with Nathan Beardsley, a sports scientist, becoming his assistant. England fly to Spain for a training camp in Girona next week before their Autumn Nations Series campaign begins against New Zealand on November 2 at the Allianz Stadium.

Tobin spent eight years at Gloucester as head of performance and was a target for Ireland before they swooped for Walters and the Cherry and Whites director of rugby George Skivington has no doubt he is ready to head an international programme.

“From England’s point of view, they are in very good hands with Dan,” Skivington said. “He’s world class. Dan’s been amazing here. He is very quick and super intelligent. He is top of his game and that’s why England have poached him. We will miss him round here, his ideas and bouncing things off him. We are very well aligned and when I talk about developing the maul and a conditioning programme to develop that, he came up with loads of ideas around that maul. England have really gained a special character there.”

England head coach Steve Borthwick is already dealing with several fitness headaches and is expected to omit the Northampton pair of Alex Mitchell and Fraser Dingwall from the squad for the Autumn Nations Series on Wednesday. Scrum-half Mitchell is struggling with a neck injury while centre Dingwall picked up a knee niggle at last week’s training camp. Leicester’s Jack van Poortvliet is set to challenge for a first cap since limping out of England’s World Cup warm-up victory over Wales at Twickenham last August.

On Tuesday, Phil Dowson, the Saints’ director of rugby, addressed Mitchell’s ongoing injury concerns as well as providing an update on Dingwall and forward Alex Coles.

“Mitch had an injection and we’re waiting to see how effective that’s been,” Dowson said. “So, as frustrating as it is, and there’s lots of questions around it, there isn’t a definitive timeline because people are reticent to do anything more invasive. So, basically, the conservative approach is the best approach. Unfortunately that’s one without a timeline. So we’re sitting on our hands a little bit waiting to see how he is. He is improving but he’s improving very slowly and it’s how we can accelerate that process without risking anything from a long-term point of view. I want to make sure that he’s not stressed about it, which he doesn’t seem to be. He’s a bit frustrated. But we want to make sure we do the right thing by him personally.

“Alex Coles had a rib issue and he’s not a million miles away so we’re trying to push him for this weekend. But it really depends on his threshold for getting through training. And Fraser Dingwall won’t be available this weekend. He’s still nursing a knee that he aggravated. He’d been carrying it for a couple of weeks, it was aggravated at England training last week. So we’re trying to make sure that he gets the best opportunity to be back soon.”

There was a more positive update from Sale Sharks where George Ford is progressing well from the torn quad he suffered against Saracens in late September. Initially, he was expected to be ruled out of the Autumn Nations Series and while he will not return for Sale’s Premiership clash against Northampton on Friday he is expected to resume training next week.