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'They [Te'o-Brown] weren't the only two players that had differences, there were others...'
By Josh Raisey
One of the biggest stories before England’s World Cup campaign in Japan was the altercation between Ben Te’o and Mike Brown during the team’s warm-weather camp in Italy.
The centre and full-back were dropped from the squad soon after, and it was widely believed that it was due to their alleged fight.
However, England head coach Eddie Jones has recently said their omission was because they were not the “right players for the World Cup”.
Jones said this while speaking specifically about an incident between two members of the England football team, Raheem Sterling and Joe Gomez, who clashed when playing for Manchester City and Liverpool respectively at the weekend and were then embroiled in another altercation with the national team.
Regarding this incident, Sterling has been dropped for England’s next match against Montenegro by manager Gareth Southgate in a similar way that Jones dismissed Te’o and Brown.
(Continue reading below...)
However, the Australian said that this was not the only occasion before or during the RWC where emotions ran high.
“It was a matter of us picking the right players for the World Cup. They weren’t the only two players that had differences, there was plenty of other players that had differences, and at the World Cup we had differences.”
This admission by Jones not only gives an insight into the England camp during the RWC, but sheds yet more light on why the former Worcester Warrior Te’o and Harlequins’ Brown did not go to Japan.
This may not be all that surprising to many, as a Test rugby environment will always create friction amongst team-mates as they vie for places.
Jones will hope he does not face those problems this week, as he takes charge of the Barbarians who face Fiji at Twickenham this Saturday.
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Latest Comments
I 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…
Go to commentswell remember the blues had a guy called jed rowlands for a season. remember scott took his coaching team with him give him time
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