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RFU statement: Borthwick's England lose two more players to injury

England's Elliot Daly (Photo by John Berry/Getty Images)

England have now lost a total of four players from their original 36-strong Guinness Six Nations squad, Elliot Daly and Jamie George withdrawing on Tuesday from this week’s five-day training camp just 24 hours after it was confirmed that Courtney Lawes and George McGuigan would miss out.

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Dave Ribbans and Tom Dunn were the pair called up following Monday’s injury bulletin, and Ollie Lawrence and Jamie Blamire have now become the latest beneficiaries and were poised to train with England today at Twickenham.

An RFU statement read: “Elliot Daly (hamstring) and Jamie George (concussion) have been withdrawn from the England squad through injury. Jamie Blamire and Ollie Lawrence have been called up to the squad and will take part in training at Twickenham Stadium on Tuesday.

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“Steve Borthwick’s side are taking part in a five-day training camp ahead of next week’s championship opener against Scotland at Twickenham on Saturday, February 4.”

It was Monday, the same day that Borthwick and captain Owen Farrell attended the Six Nations media launch in central London, that the first squad casualties were confirmed at the start of the new head coach’s first campaign in charge.

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That RFU statement read: “Courtney Lawes (calf) and George McGuigan (knee) have withdrawn through injury from the England squad who meet today [Monday] for a Guinness Six Nations training camp. Tom Dunn and David Ribbans have been called up to the squad by head coach Steve Borthwick. The squad will join up this afternoon at the Honda England Rugby Performance Centre at Pennyhill Park for a five-day camp.”

It was January 16 when Borthwick named his squad of 36 for the championship. McGuigan was one of five uncapped payers included in that selection, while Lawes and Daly were back in the mix following an extended period out under previous boss Eddie Jones.

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GrahamVF 1 hour ago
The times are changing, and some Six Nations teams may be left behind

The main problem is that on this thread we are trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. Rugby union developed as distinct from rugby league. The difference - rugby league opted for guaranteed tackle ball and continuous phase play. Rugby union was based on a stop start game with stanzas of flowing exciting moves by smaller faster players bookended by forward tussles for possession between bigger players. The obsession with continuous play has brought the hybrid (long before the current use) into play. Backs started to look more like forwards because they were expected to compete at the tackle and breakdowns completely different from what the original game looked like. Now here’s the dilemma. Scrum lineout ruck and maul, tackling kicking handling the ball. The seven pillars of rugby union. We want to retain our “World in Union” essence with the strong forward influence on the game but now we expect 125kg props to scrum like tractors and run around like scrum halves. And that in a nutshell is the problem. While you expect huge scrums and ball in play time to be both yardsticks, you are going to have to have big benches. You simply can’t have it both ways. And BTW talking about player safety when I was 19 I was playing at Stellenbosch at a then respectable (for a fly half) 160lbs against guys ( especially in Koshuis rugby) who were 100 lbs heavier than me - and I played 80 minutes. You just learned to stay out of their way. In Today’s game there is no such thing and not defending your channel is a cardinal sin no matter how unequal the task. When we hybridised with union in semi guaranteed tackle ball the writing was on the wall.

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