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Saracens include Farrell but no sign yet of Smith for Harlequins
By Liam Heagney
England skipper Owen Farrell will captain Saracens this Saturday at The Stoop but he won’t face Test teammate Marcus Smith as Harlequins have continued with his pre-season rest programme for the round two Gallagher Premiership match and will instead start Tommaso Allan at out-half. Farrell is joined in the Saracens team by Billy Vunipola and Maro Itoje, who also toured Australia in July for the 2-1 Test series win, while Jamie George will start on the bench.
For Quins, England summer tourist Joe Marchant is promoted from last week’s replacements at Newcastle to start on the wing in place of the injured Nick David. He is one of three changes with Will Collier and Will Evans also included to start.
Joe Marler and Alex Dombrandt, who missed the England tour, are other notable starters for Tabai Matson’s side, but Danny Care will sit the match out along with Smith. A statement read: “Danny Care continues to rehabilitate a minor muscle strain sustained during pre-season, looking to return to the Harlequins match day squad over the next two weeks.
“Unfortunately for the club, fly-half Marcus Smith was not given clearance to play this week and will continue his mandated rest period following England’s summer internationals.”
For Saracens, Hugh Tizard, their new signing from Harlequins, will debut at lock while scrum-half Ivan van Zyl will be alongside skipper Farrell at fly-half, with Nick Tompkins - on his 150th appearance for the club - and Alex Lozowski making up a familiar midfield partnership. Tompkins said: “It’s an amazing feeling to get this many caps for such a special team and with such special teammates. I’m very grateful to have the opportunities that have been given to me.”
HARLEQUINS: 1. Joe Marler, 2. George Head, 3. Will Collier, 4. George Hammond, 5. Irne Herbst, 6. Jack Kenningham, 7. Will Evans, 8. Alex Dombrandt (capt); 9. Lewis Gjaltema, 10. Tommy Allan; 11. Cadan Murley, 12. Lennox Anyanwu, 13. Luke Northmore, 14. Joe Marchant, 15. Tyrone Green. Reps: 16. Jack Walker, 17. Simon Kerrod 18. Wilco Louw, 19. Dino Lamb, 20. Archie White, 21. Jack Stafford, 22. Will Edwards, 23. Hayden Hyde.
SARACENS: 1. Eroni Mawi, 2. Tom Woolstencroft, 3. Christian Judge, 4. Maro Itoje, 5. Hugh Tizard, 6. Theo McFarland, 7. Ben Earl, 8. Billy Vunipola; 9. Ivan van Zyl, 10. Owen Farrell (capt); 11. Alex Lewington, 12. Nick Tompkins, 13. Alex Lozowski, 14. Max Malins, 15. Elliot Daly. Reps: 16. Jamie George, 17. Mako Vunipola, 18. Alec Clarey, 19. Andy Christie, 20. Jackson Wray, 21. Aled Davies, 22. Manu Vunipola, 23. Duncan Taylor.
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Latest Comments
Great point. It would be terrible to have a card for poor tackling cost the all blacks a world cup. Oh hi all blacks captain Sam Cane, how you going?
Go to commentsI like Andy’s critical approach to all hot issues especially when it comes to the rugby big “bosses”. However, sorry Andy, I don’t support your “we shouldn’t be questioning the integrity of Karl Dickson or any other official”. May I ask why? They do have a lot of responsibility, but they are people like us with all their sins and weaknesses. We have to respect their decision during the games, but why they became untouchable afterwards and people cannot even criticize them and the ones, who does express their concerns, got punished for publicly analyzing their mistakes and asking questions. If they believe they did right, there shouldn’t be a problem for any of the refs to answer these “questions” publicly. I don’t really remember such cases. However, I do remember how Craig Joubert shown his running skills in 2015 or Pascal Gauzere shined in Cardiff in 2021. I do believe that Rassie, as anybody else, had a full right to share his vision of Nic Berry’s performance the same year. I do not support the hate in any form especially in public one, but creating the cast of untouchable refs and rugby bosses is not for me. As for Karl, he had all means to question his appointment for the game and since I don’t now whether he did it, blaming just RFU wouldn’t be quite correct at this moment. I love the game of rugby and almost every time I watch it I don’t support any team, I just wanna see the good game and fair referring. Sorry, Karl. last Saturday you got my Craig Joubert”s award of the round. It is up to Karl to prove that I am wrong, not to Andy or RFU’s corporate bla-bla-bla. Something like that…
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