Hadrian’s maul
SINFIELD WARNS SCOTS: BIG BEASTS ARE BRACED TO DO SOME DAMAGE
KEVIN SINFIELD trained his guns on Murrayfield and warned Scotland that England are bringing their big beasts up to Edinburgh.
Steve Borthwick’s side are set dial up the power with centre Ollie Lawrence and Manu Tuilagi plus Leicester’s George Martin back in the mix for this weekend’s Calcutta Cup clash.
England assistant coach Sinfield has backed the trio of heavyweights to do some damage if required on Saturday.
Neither Martin, Tuilagi nor Lawrence have featured in the Six Nations so far, with Tuilagi adding a groin injury to his growing list of medical setbacks. But Sinfield has warned Scotland the recovered 32-year-old has plenty left in the tank and Martin, star of the World Cup semi-final against South Africa, is itching to make an impact.
Sinfield said: “When you play like Manu has done for so long, and you are so physical, it is inevitable that at some point in your career you will have a run of injuries.
“Don’t write him off yet. He’s still got some really good years ahead of him.
“George is big, physical and aggressive. You saw in the semi-final last year when he really stood out on the international stage against some of the biggest, nastiest, aggressive forwards in the world. He was in and amongst it.
“If selected at the weekend I have no doubt he’ll leave a mark on somebody.
“He’s already a top player, but he’s going to get better and better.”
Sinfield (left) insists his side are ready for all the niggle and dirty tricks the Scots can throw at them as they aim for just a second win in seven against Finn Russell’s side.
The former rugby league star said: “There’s certainly going to be some niggle. When you’ve got two angry, nasty forward packs wanting to go at each other, there’ll be some niggle. It’s a Test match, there’s a lot at stake and we haven’t won against them for a number of years.
“There’ll be some bits thrown at us over the next couple of days that we haven’t planned for or we haven’t quite expected.
“But that’s the nature of being in top-level sport and watching the team evolve and make the best of some of the circumstances we are faced with.”
Russell has been the focal point of England’s analysis and Sinfield and the coaching staff have been calling on some inside knowledge to help them neutralise the fly-half.
Lawrence, Max Ojomoh and Ben Spencer have been in camp and all play with Russell at Bath, so Sinfield has got them to give England the heads-up. “It’s really helpful,” he said. “We’d be daft not to tap into some of that knowledge and try and understand a bit about how he plays at Bath, and what we think he will take up to Scotland camp.
“The coaching team here have done their homework – and there’s been a lot of homework to do on him.
“He’s an outstanding guy, and a wonderful player.
“We are under no illusions that at some point during the game on Saturday he’ll come up with something pretty special.”