Manu’s going in on a wing and a prayer
We know that Manu Tuilagi is a great rugby player. Can he play on the wing? Yes. But he is not, and never will be, a winger.
Eddie Jones’ decision to start Tuilagi there against the Wallabies rather than at centre has left me scratching my head and my concern is the selection as a whole will leave England’s players doing the same at Twickenham.
Man for man it is a strong England line-up that Jones is putting out and he is clearly trying to get all of his best players on the field at the same time, but the way he has chosen to do that threatens confusion rather than clarity.
With Tuilagi, there are certain parts of his game – the physicality especially – which will cause his opposite number Tom Wright problems, but other parts of his game will leave the Wallabies thinking that picking him out of position works in their favour.
England will try to use him off his wing as often as possible, punching holes up the guts in the midfield, but if you want Tuilagi to do that, why not just pick him in the midfield? Why complicate everything?
There is another example of this muddled thinking at No.8, where England have named Tom Curry, who is a world-class flanker, and opted to put not one but two specialists – Alex Dombrandt and Sam Simmonds – on the bench.
This pack did a good job against Tonga last week but Australia, who have improved their set piece under Dave Rennie and will have been stung by their narrow loss to Scotland, will be a stiffer challenge. England would be better served going in with a genuine No.8.
This next fortnight is the real test for England to see whether they are getting back on track again after a poor Six Nations and I’m concerned they might have made things unnecessarily difficult for themselves.
That being said, it is great to see Marcus Smith starting at No.10.
It’s an opportunity for him against the Wallabies and South Africa to show he is the man for the 2023 World Cup.
He has 211 international caps’ worth of experience either side in Ben Youngs and Owen Farrell and it will be interesting to see how those combinations work. One player I’m particularly excited to see off the bench is Raffi Quirke. He has been the scrum-half understudy to Faf de Klerk at Sale but, having been given a run, he has been playing exceptionally well.
He adds so much pace to the game and can create something out of nothing.
He’s only 20 but he has a great work ethic and attitude. Since I joined the Sale board we’ve had numerous conversations together, especially about footwork, and it has been rewarding to share a little bit on that subject with him.
I hope we get to see some of what we’ve spoken about in an England shirt this evening.