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Mixed injury news for England duo ahead of Premiership matches

Ben Te'o, England centre. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)
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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.

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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.

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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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Phantom 47 minutes ago
Nations Championship: 'The data shows the north has finally caught up with the south'

Fact: the gap between the North and the South has narrowed considerably - that I get. However, determining that only selecting only Home grown players or playing in the home country is is the optimal strategy is a bit of a toss up and highly reliant on the economies of the home union. I do understand that England and to a lesser degree Ireland selects home based only. The top 14 is a massive threat to their domestic product. France would probably not be affected (the money is at home). Fiji, Argentina, Samoa, Italy and you could even argue Scotland have only benefitted from this. Their players either go overseas to learn at higher levels (Fiji, Samoa, Argentina) or players coming into their leagues to strengthen the home product and their National teams (Scotland, Italy, Japan).

South Africa used to limit its selection to the home based players, but the reality of a weak currency vs what players could earn oversees meant that you lost access to your best players at some stage of their careers, with very few exceptions. Kolbe left SA as he was considered too small for International Rugby (yes coaches/selectors view), but ironically in France he forced selectors to notice his endeavors and select him. He is only reaching 50 caps now despite being north of 30 - granted rotation and the odd injury also played a role, but for the most part it is having debuted or becoming a regular so late.



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