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Eddie Jones has told RugbyPass that he wants his England side to have a “physical, upbeat performance” in Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations game against Italy at Twickenham.
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Having made five changes to the side that lost to Wales, Jones has selected some serious muscle mass to take on Conor O’Shea’s Azzurri, starting with the selection of Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinckler together in the front row.
Jones said: “We’re really pleased with the development of those two boys. We took them to Australia in 2016 where between the two of them they’d played less than 20 Premiership games, so we took a bit of a punt on them. They’ve matured considerably and we’re delighted for both of them that they’re progressing at such a rate.”
Jones has also beefed up his midfield, pairing the recalled Ben Te’o alongside Manu Tuilagi. “It’s just a good opportunity for us. We’ve been really happy with Manu and Henry Slade, but it’s another opportunity for us to have a look at a different way of playing and we want to be adaptable and we want to be flexible. We just don’t want to play one way, we want to be able to a number of ways.”
It’s an interesting remark given England came under fire after their loss to Wales for not having come up with a Plan B in terms of their attacking style. Asked if he heard the criticism in the last two weeks, Jones replied in his deliberately obtuse fashion, “I know a lot of people have a lot of good opinions and I’m sure that whatever opinion they have there was relevance in their opinion.”
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On the one hand, Jones talked of the opportunity to look at positional combinations but this seemed to contradict his use of Wasps scrum-half Dan Robson, who has only played a handful of minutes since he was taken to South Africa last summer. While plenty of England fans thought this weekend’s match against Italy would be a chance to start Robson, Jones has stuck with Ben Youngs.
“There’s an old saying, if you listen to the fans you end up in the grandstand with them. So I’m certainly conscious of the fact that we need to have two half-backs and I’ll find the appropriate time to make sure that we do. He’s our second best half back at the moment. We know what Richard (Wigglesworth) can do and Danny (Care) is a very good player but at the moment we’re bringing Dan on. And I know how to bring a young player on.”
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Your England team to face Italy on Saturday in the #GuinnessSixNations, LIVE on @ITVSport from 16:45 GMT ?
Preview ? https://t.co/uLeASojzEL pic.twitter.com/eIu2Es3UZz
— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) March 7, 2019
With Brad Shields also into the starting line up, Mark Wilson is on the bench alongside Nathan Hughes with no second row specialist named. Jones clarified: “Nathan’s a guy we’ve been slowly developing as a standby lock. We just feel we could get a lot of value having the ability to have a back rower that can play lock. We had that with Courtney Lawes, but now that Courtney is injured we don’t have that so we’re trying another like for like with Courtney.”
England struggled against Italy two years ago due to the “ruck-gate” tricks employed by O’Shea. Jones seemed keener this time to show a little more respect to the Azzurri.
? #Italrugby: annunciato il XV che fronteggerà l'Inghilterra sabato a Twickenham ? https://t.co/eo2Uz4sOfD#ENGvITA @SixNationsRugby #insieme #rugbypassioneitaliana pic.twitter.com/2LVcH5g2Y3
— Italrugby (@Federugby) March 7, 2019
“If you look at their team, they’ve got a number of highly credited players. (Sergio) Parisse’s a 136-capped player, (Braam) Steyn and (Sebastian) Negri are very combative, strong second rowers.
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“Steyn’s probably been one of the players of the tournament. In the centres, they’ve got (Michele) Campagnaro who’s coming back to his best form. (Luca) Morisi is seen as a good strong centre with an outside break.
“They have got plenty of firepower. They have been moving the ball quite a lot and been quite aggressive in their approach to attack, so we’re going to be delighted to defend against them.”
Comments on RugbyPass
The author is 100% right. The Springboks know that they don't have near the natural attraction, mana, skill and mystic the All Blacks have. So, Chasing the sun 1 & 2 was concocted to overblow the Boks image on the back of a corruptly obtained “win". It's marketing ploy to force the Boks delusion as the World's Best. I guess World Rugby is also not to be believed when it came out with an apology about how the final was officiated. And if the 2023 final such a superb game by the Boks, then the Boks crying about Referee Bryce Lawrence for decades is also deserves a laugh. Chase the sun and get burned like a moth. A very well written literary piece that tore the Boks and Chasing the sun farce to shreds. 🖤All Blacks🏉
141 Go to commentsI’d say France was far more hard done by in the 2011 final than the All Blacks in this game. Joubert simply refused to call a penalty against the All Blacks in the last quarter even directing an All Black to drop a ball he picked up in an offside position rather than penalizing him. This article also totally discounts the efforts of PSTD. Ask Jordie how well he played. Or the backup flank who played hooker for the entire game. Siya was also a brilliant tackle by Richie from scoring a blinder. Pollard was also fantastic. Look I don’t like the boks style but the only thing more questionable than the content of this article is the timing of it. Get over it already
141 Go to commentsDad Marty was also a handy rugby player for Linwood back in the day. Great bloke. Sensational softball career.
2 Go to commentsWhat ifs are always dangerous. If you look at the game before Sam cane got sent of SA was dominating. You could make the argument the going down to 14 men rallied the troops and made them have to play to win which is always dangerous.
141 Go to commentsOmg… you are bruised And battered Benny. Stop crying … the scoreboard speaks. What a pathetic lover you are.. 🤣🤣🤣
141 Go to commentsPacific Lions, cry me a river
141 Go to commentsThis is the single worst piece of journalism I have ever seen since your last one. As a neutral, who really states that there should be an asterisk next to a win? You are an utter embarrassment to real AB fans, journalism and that joke of a house which pays you for this nonsense. Get a life, Ben.
141 Go to commentsGuys. Cancel the World Cup champions after this analysis. It changes everything. Ben knows. We’ll have to unengrave the Bokke off the trophy and hand it to the ABs, now that I’ve been enlightened about this illegitimate win. This needs to be done. Now!
141 Go to commentsBen is right here though, Springboks were woefully poor with the advantage they had throughout this game. The France match was heroic because that was an even contest this match had it taken place in Rugby Championship would have been an easy win for NZ. If anything this match should tell the Bok coaches that a lot of this team should be changed. They beat this same NZ team by record margin with the same circumstances but with a different core. They bring back the tried and tested guys and they nearly botch this game.
141 Go to commentsI knew who wrote this article from the first few words in the headline…lol. The red card actually did the ABs a favour. It galvanized them, only then did they step up a gear. Before that there was zero momentum.
141 Go to commentsFirstly the foul on Bongi was a planned move just like the NZ master plan with Bryce Lawrence you kiwis are filthy fux perhaps try to play a cleaner game next time I doubt that’s possible tho but don’t worry world rugby is on yr side they trying to take away all the BOKS strengths to help all you weakling as Jeremy Clarkson would say LA OO ZA ERR..🤣
141 Go to commentsAbsolutely spot on Ben. I certainly wouldn't gloat over a win like that. Frustrating as it is it's done and dusted and history will forever show the result.
141 Go to commentsHo hum.
141 Go to commentsNo question they were the better team. But that is the beauty of sport isn’t it!
141 Go to commentsEveryone is into Hurling in Ireland according to Porter, but only 11 of Ireland's 32 counties enter a team into the national competition. Same old blarney.
1 Go to commentsLet’s be honest. The draw and scheduling in the World Cup was a joke but South Africa found a way after having to go the hard (nearly impossible) way to the Cup Final via France and England. NZ had a hard game against France (lost) and had 5 weeks to prepare for the Quarter, 3 weeks knowing it was Ireland. NZ theerfore had to win one big game against an Irish team who played SA and then Scotland 7 days before. They won and it was de facto a semi final because they were playing a relatively weak Argentina team and it was a walk over. In the final a very rested NZ team was playing a very tired SA team and still lost. They couldn’t score more than 11 points. Put another way SA had to find a way to win while tired and they achieved that. NZ should thank their lucky stars that they fixed the scheduling in 2015 otherwise they would be dealing with a Bok treble.
141 Go to commentsPerhaps if Bongi wasn’t targeted and removed from the game in the first 3 minutes it would have been quite a different game. Maybe if NZ also faced the same competition the Boks faced to their win NZ would have looked quite different. The final score shows who outplayed who.
141 Go to commentsRubbish article! Abuladze played most of Exeters matches when fit. He got injured against Glasgow a while ago and is out for the rest of the season, thats why he hasnt played for Exeter and Georgia recently. Do some proper research next time!
1 Go to commentsGotta love it when kids throw their toys out the pram and can’t hack it with the grown ups debate. Here’s looking at you turlough! 😉🤣
148 Go to commentsThey lost the game period move on
141 Go to comments