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Mixed injury news for England duo ahead of Premiership matches
By Online Editors
It's been a long time coming, but England centre Ben Te’o will make his first start of the season for Worcester Warriors in their Gallagher Premiership match against Saracens at Allianz Park on Saturday.
A combination of injury and international commitments have restricted Te’o to just one Worcester appearance so far this season, as a replacement in the European Challenge Cup win over Ospreys in October. However, Te'o did feature in three of England's four November internationals.
Te’o will form a new centre pairing with Francois Venter as Ryan Mills suffered a wrist injury against Northampton Saints last week and he will miss his first Premiership match this season.
Te'o, who reportedly earns in the region of £350,000 per year, has only made 25 appearances for Worcester since he joined the club from Leinster in 2016.
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Saracens had hoped to have Billy Vunipola back in time for the Worcester match with the club stating at the start of the month that he'd be back for Rounds 11-12 of the Gallagher Premiership, but the England number 8 hasn't managed to recover. The next target is the game against Sale on January 4th at the AJ Bell Stadium, as he looks to prove his fitness and form ahead of the Six Nations.
2018 has been a year to forget for Vunipola, he broke his right arm against the Ospreys in January and suffered the same injury again on England’s summer tour to South Africa and had a plate inserted to try and solve the problem. He then broke his left in October against the Glasgow Warriors.
Maro Itoje is still out with his chipped patella in his knee, while Liam Williams, Jackson Wray, Richard Wigglesworth and Mike Rhodes are all also absent through injury for Saturday's match.
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Even with absences we still had the cattle to make the playoffs. As it was, we nearly stumbled our way into the top 8. Which shows just how easy it was to get there. And still we failed. As for Razor, there are many instances of him patching up the Crusaders roster. Numerous. Several players I'd never heard of. Also, using AB legend John Afoa was a classic.
But, some of the games we were losing were from schoolboy errors, or downright confusion. Either the players were really dumb (they weren’t) or they were poorly coached. Given the repetitive nature of errors, brain fades, poor decision making, & loose structures, this all lands with the coaching group.
With only six playoff spots now in SR, & Aussie franchises now consolidated to four, 2025 looks like a tight one. I'm picking we'll have to tough it out under Penney & hope for the best.
Go to commentsAgree we need a 10, 12, 13 refresh. ASAP. Well, next season now lol. Reiko should be put back on the wing. He'll be an absolute menace there. Imagine 11 Reiko 14 Clarke 15 Jordan as the backfield unit.
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