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Another wing surprise as England make 2 changes for Springboks
By Liam Heagney
Eddie Jones has named an England team to take on the Springboks in this Saturday’s Autumn Nations Series game in London that shows two changes from the starting XV that defeated the Wallabies last Saturday. Changes were guaranteed with skipper Owen Farrell and hooker Jamie George ruled out of contention following the victory over Australia.
Their places in the starting England team are taken by Joe Marchant and Jamie Blamire. Marchant will start on the right wing, with Manu Tuilagi, last week's No14, reverting to Farrell's place at No12. Courtney Lawes takes over the captaincy.
In the pack, Blamire is chosen for his first Test start. On the bench, hooker Nic Dolly is in line for a Test debut while Joe Marler is included despite only being available to train with the squad on Friday following his period of isolation. England have opted for a six/two forwards/backs split on the bench with Raffi Quirke and Max Malins their only two backs. This is in contrast to the Springboks going with a five/three split.
It is the first meeting between the countries since the 2019 World Cup final that was won by the Springboks in Yokohama 24 months ago and it will be played out amid the backdrop of Springboks director Rassie Erasmus getting heavily sanctioned on Wednesday following the charges of misconduct arising out of the Lions tour last July.
Jones said: “This is our biggest game of the season and the final game of the autumn campaign and we want to finish with a bang. We have been really pleased with the preparation this week and how the team has continued to develop over the past month.
“Now we want to put on our best performance this autumn in front of a capacity 82,000 crowd at Twickenham.” The non-selected players will return to their clubs on Thursday, as per an agreement with clubs, PRL and the RPA.
ENGLAND (vs Springboks, Saturday)
1. Bevan Rodd
2. Jamie Blamire
3. Kyle Sinckler
4. Maro Itoje
5. Jonny Hill
6. Courtney Lawes
7. Sam Underhill
8. Tom Curry
9. Ben Youngs
10. Marcus Smith
11. Jonny May
12. Manu Tuilagi
13. Henry Slade
14. Joe Marchant
15. Freddie Steward
FINISHERS
16. Nic Dolly
17. Joe Marler
18. Will Stuart
19. Charlie Ewels
20. Sam Simmonds
21. Alex Dombrandt
22. Raffi Quirke
23. Max Malins
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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