Daily Mail

WE’LL MEET AGAIN

England and Wales to repeat joint drills

- By CHRIS FOY Rugby Correspond­ent @FoyChris

ENGLAND and Wales will consider repeating yesterday’s joint training session between their forwards, despite a poor surface taking some of the sting out of the socalled ‘Battle of Bristol’.

The rival nations’ packs went head-to-head at Clifton College, in an unpreceden­ted 40-minute session comprising 12 scrums and 16 lineouts, overseen by referee Nigel Owens.

England’s Maro Itoje was a notable absentee. He remained at England’s training base where he was placed on a different training programme.

Sportsmail understand­s that the idea was enough of a success to stimulate an appetite for it to happen again at some stage.

The ‘closed’ session was, in fact, watched by hundreds of Clifton pupils. The vast majority offered loud support for England, although reports suggested that one child unfurled a Welsh flag.

It was widely expected that sparks would fly in the scrum but there was no hint of any trouble. Both sides were at pains to say they benefited from the exercise and there was much partyline talk about it finishing with honours more or less even. But that was partly due to the pitch.

‘It was probably a draw because unfortunat­ely the pitch gave way,’ said England prop Dan Cole. ‘It was quite heavy so after the first engagement, as soon as there was any movement, it gave way.

‘Nobody got pushed off their ball. It was fairly difficult to take the opposition ball because you couldn’t really chase your feet. We got what we wanted out of it in terms of set-up and engagement. Up to the point where you have to move your feet, it was good.’

Saracens lock George Kruis was satisfied that England had been aggressive, without oversteppi­ng the mark, adding: ‘There was definitely intent there.

‘We were profession­al enough to control ourselves and understand it was a training tool rather than a smash-up on the Monday of a Test week.’

Cole claimed that tempers were kept in check because the rival forwards were not allowed to practise mauling against each other and Wales lock Jake Ball concurred.

‘There wasn’t any live mauling because that could have potentiall­y kicked off,’ said the Scarlet. ‘It was a good battle and we got something out of it. We had some really good scrums and were happy with our line-out.

‘When you train against each other week-in, week-out everyone finds out what your weaknesses are so it was nice to go up against an England pack you didn’t know too much about.

‘It’s got added edge because it’s against England. You want to put your best foot forward.’

Both teams returned to their training bases convinced that the cross-border engagement will have aided their preparatio­ns for Saturday’s opening round of autumn fixtures — England v Argentina and Wales v Australia.

Eddie Jones and his assistants opted to leave four rookie forwards — Tom Dunn, Nick Isiekwe, Zach Mercer and Sam Simmonds — in Bagshot to continue working on a separate training programme.

And although Saracens’ lock Maro Itoje was also kept back at England’s training base, he is still expected to feature in the clash with the Pumas at Twickenham on Saturday.

 ?? HUW EVANS ?? Just Williams: Owen holds on to Scott at Wales training yesterday
HUW EVANS Just Williams: Owen holds on to Scott at Wales training yesterday
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