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England name replacement as van Poortvliet will miss World Cup
By Liam Heagney
England have been forced to alter their official squad of 33 for the upcoming Rugby World Cup, the RFU confirming on Monday that Jack van Poortvliet will undergo surgery and won’t be available for the finals which start versus Argentina in Marseille on September 9.
It was only last Monday at Twickenham when the 22-year-old van Poortvliet was included as one of the three scrum-haves in the squad for France 2023, the Leicester youngster selected along with club colleague Ben Youngs and Harlequins’ Danny Care.
He had spoken enthusiastically that day at English Rugby HQ about how he had got the delightful news the previous day from Steve Borthwick in Cardiff that he had been named in the squad, going on to reveal the delight felt by his family when he told them about his selection when they were driving back from a university trip to Oxford.
However, the youngster’s World Cup campaign lasted less than a week as he limped out of last Saturday’s Summer Nations Series win over Wales after succumbing to a first-half ankle injury.
Head coach Borthwick said in the immediate aftermath: “JP is a positive character. Let’s wait and see what happens, we will get the scan, find out the situation and from there will make a plan.”
That plan has now been confirmed, that van Poortvliet will sadly be unavailable and will be replaced in the squad by Alex Mitchell. The 26-year-old Northampton player featured on four occasions off the Guinness Six Nations bench earlier this year behind van Poortvliet, who started all five of those games.
However, despite inclusion for two weeks of England training in June, Mitchell was ditched by Borthwick when his official RWC training squad was announced at the end of that month.
It meant that van Poortvliet, Youngs and Care spent the following five weeks of training knowing they were likely to be selected in the RWC squad as Borthwick had signposted he would be bringing three players in specialist positions such as scrum-half.
This was what transpired, van Poortvliet, Youngs and Care all getting selected in last Monday’s World Cup squad, but Youngs and Care will now have Mitchell, rather than the first-choice van Poortvliet, for company in France.
A statement read: “Scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet will require surgery on an ankle injury sustained during England’s win against Wales on Saturday at Twickenham Stadium and will not feature in the forthcoming Rugby World Cup in France. Alex Mitchell is called into the England squad as his replacement.”
Borthwick said: “It’s really bad luck for Jack, and we send him our very best wishes for a swift and successful recovery.”
England, who are also awaiting Tuesday’s disciplinary hearing for skipper Owen Farrell following his red card versus Wales, will take on Ireland next Saturday in Dublin and Fiji at Twickenham on August 26 before heading to France before the end of this month.
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Oz Govt MOH have completed their c commission - they admit they never had the proveable data to make justify their statements and decisions & that the public will never accept it ever happening again - they fired rubber B into peaceful protestors Ardern is hated here ( 1 M patriots forced her out ) - bloomfield her side kick 2IC dr D excempted 11k from taking it - we (not u) know who they were the Pol and Public servants who knew they were fatal - A zeneca pulled it off the market due 2 excess D's - Japan banned them - called them stupid poison -
P M Shinzo Abe opposed the v and sent over a million doses back - because of that he was murdered - So were the heads of several African nations who also opposed the fake v they were k'd and their replacements allowed their countries to be swamped with them - C was V wasnt bought in fo C - C was bought in for the V
Im not here to talk politics but if u want to I can all day especially to a RED neck commie like you - whats it going to be Rugby or Politics or mud slinging give me something to think about - surprise me with something meaty - just not word salad
Go to commentsIt doesn’t matter how good your rugby team is, at the highest level you are going to have momentum swings in games.
Wales having a good ten minute period next week- and they will- doesn’t mean the Boks will be playing poorly.
It’s if you can make the most of it when you have the momentum. And the current group of springboks do enough when they create enough, as great teams do.
For comparison, the All Blacks played their best game of the year against France.
Still lost. And it’s only France’s second game so they aren’t firing at 100% yet.
The ABs haven’t got to that ruthless stage that the springboks are at yet.
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