1
Itoje leaves England camp as Eddie names 31-man squad
By Chris Jones
England head coach Eddie Jones has finally accepted that Maro Itoje needs to be allowed to fully recover from the knee injury that has ruled him out of all but one of England’s Six Nations matches with the Saracens lock sent back to his club in the build up to Saturday’s clash with Scotland at Twickenham.
Itoje injured knee ligaments in the opening Six Nations match with Ireland and RugbyPass revealed it was an eight week recovery period ruling him out of the rest of the tournament.
England insisted they could get him back sooner with Itoje lined up to face Italy only to suffer a set back in training as he side stepped past Jones who was acting as an Italian defender.
Jones tried to play down the set back but now has agreed to let Itoje continue his rehabilitation under the expertise of Phil Morrow, the Saracens head of performance, who is currently masterminding Mako Vunipola’s return from a calf injury that will keep him out for up to 10 weeks.
With Saracens facing a European Champions Cup quarter-final with Glasgow Warriors and needing to stabilise their Gallagher Premiership title challenge, the return of Itoje is key. Now, they get to take full control over his recovery having been in constant contact with the England medical team.
Jones will be expected to stick with the second row pair of Joe Launchbury and George Kruis against Scotland but has called up Gloucester’s Elliott Stooke to join Bath’s Charlie Ewels as other options for the bench. Marcus Smith, the outstanding young Harlequins No10, is also included ahead of Danny Cipriani.
Sale’s Chris Ashton has not recovered from injury and is not included in the 31 strong training squad clearing the way for Joe Cokanasiga to continue causing mayhem on the right wing for England after his impressive showing in the win over Italy.
England squad
Forwards
Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers)
Luke Cowan-Dickie (Exeter Chiefs)
Tom Curry (Sale Sharks)
Ben Earl (Saracens)
Charlie Ewels (Bath Rugby)
Ellis Genge (Leicester Tigers)
Jamie George (Saracens)
Nathan Hughes (Wasps)
George Kruis (Saracens)
Joe Launchbury (Wasps)
Ben Moon (Exeter Chiefs)
Brad Shields (Wasps)
Kyle Sinckler (Harlequins)
Elliott Stooke (Bath Rugby)
Billy Vunipola (Saracens)
Harry Williams (Exeter Chiefs)
Mark Wilson (Newcastle Falcons)
Backs
Joe Cokanasiga (Bath Rugby)
Elliot Daly (Wasps)
Owen Farrell (Saracens) captain
George Ford (Leicester Tigers)
Jonathan Joseph (Bath Rugby)
Jonny May (Leicester Tigers)
Jack Nowell (Exeter Chiefs)
Dan Robson (Wasps)
Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs)
Marcus Smith (Harlequins)
Ollie Thorley (Gloucester Rugby)
Ben Te’o (Worcester Warriors)
Manu Tuilagi (Leicester Tigers)
Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers)
Trending on RugbyPass
2
Wallaroos captain reflects on Black Ferns’ success with sevens stars
3
Springboks flyhalf's latest injury worry
4
Initial Immanuel Feyi-Waboso injury update does not sound promising
5
Latest Comments
Look there are a few unarguable facts here that are very clear. SARU was close to bankruptcy with SR, bailed out by the Lions and they need the URC and EPCR. Inclusion of SA teams in URC has been a great for for ALL concerned, from a rugby perspective and financially, moreover there is massive growth yet to come. The GP is in financial trouble and this will be the catalyst for EPCR change to further cement the Boks.
If this all plays out with even greater rewards for the urc AND the Top14 & GP via EPCR, the 6N will become 7N. Nz and Aus NEED to get their version firing with Japan & the PI’s, otherwise they will find themselves increasingly regressing…
Go to commentsPerofeta came back and was available for the eoyt right? Or was that why Love was in the squad (but got injured in the last week)?
It was such a frustrating year. Perofeta looked a service stop gap until Jordan was fit, but then got injured. Plummer was selected because of Pero's injury and dmac shat the bed in the second half in Australia but Clarke (?) got himself binned at the 65 min mark so Plummer couldn't come on (at least with the risk adverse Razors thinking) when he was planned to.
So many other exciting opportunities that could have happened without injuries, but then theyre probably balanced by knowing Sititi probably wouldn't have been given a chance without multiple injuries happened.
Go to comments