MANU MADE A WING MAN
3J0opnteIsntsewriBtclkheCsoTnudilagi’s role
EDDIE JONES has sprung a major shock by picking Manu Tuilagi on the wing against Australia.
The England head coach, below, shunted his wrecking-ball centre out of position to make room to start Marcus Smith and Owen Farrell together at No.10 and No.12.
Tuilagi has only started one international on the wide outside, seven years ago when England were beaten in New Zealand.
To free up space in the team for tomorrow’s sold-out Twickenham clash, England have had to drop wing-specialist Adam Radwan.
But even that selection did not cause anything like the reaction Jones’ comments provoked last weekend about British tennis sensation Emma Raducanu.
The Australian attempted explain why he had dragged the 18-year-old into a point he was making about flyhalf Smith and the dangers of early success leading to loss of focus.
He was widely criticised for saying: “There’s a reason why the young girl who won the US Open hasn’t done so well afterwards”, pointing to her appearances in magazines and wearing designer clothes. Jones said: “I have sent Emma a private letter to make sure she understands why the comments were made. “The whole point was how difficult it is for young players to cope with distractions. We have a really good group of young players coming through in England and I want to make sure we look after them as well as we can.The average number of caps for an England player over history is seven. So many good young players come in and get swept away by the distractions. “We don’t want them to be distracted and that was the only purpose of that comment.There was no criticism of Emma.”
Jones is certainly not too concerned about Smith to fear starting him against the Wallabies. He said: “It’s a huge step but is Marcus capable of doing it? Of course he is. He’ll rise to the challenge and handle it well.”
ENGLAND: Steward; Tuilagi, Slade, Farrell (capt), May; Smith, Youngs; Genge, George, Sinckler, Itoje, Hill, Lawes, Underhill, Curry.
Reps: Blamire, Rodd, Stuart, Ewels, Dombrandt, Simmonds, Quirke, Malins.
AUSTRALIA: Beale; Kellaway, Ikitau, Paisami, Wright; O’Connor, White; Bell, Fainga’a, Slipper, Arnold, Rodda, Leota, Hooper (capt), Valetini.
Reps: Latu, Robertson, Hoskins, Skelton, Samu, McDermott, Lolesio, Perese.