QUIGG: SEE ME BE CARROLL STINGER
England stars say they’ve wised up and won’t let feisty ’Sink’ fall for the Welsh wind-up merchants again
SCOTT QUIGG admits his hopes of winning another world title will be over if he loses his homecoming fight against Jono Carroll.
Quigg (above) faces Carroll in Manchester at super-featherweight tonight after 16 months out through injury. The former WBA super-bantamweight title holder aims to become a two-weight world champ.
And Quigg accepts he must beat Dubliner Carroll to keep that dream alive.
He said: “It’s a must-win fight and one that I know I will win.”
KYLE SINCKLER will have bodyguards on hand if Wales try to target him today as they did a year ago.
The Lions prop said he “let down” his team and his country, after rising to the bait laid for him by Warren Gatland’s Grand Slam-bound side in Cardiff. Gatland, who branded him an “emotional timebomb”, has since gone but streetwise captain Alun Wyn Jones, who goaded Sinckler into conceding two key penalties before Eddie Jones hooked him, is back for more.
This time, both player and team are better prepared and Courtney Lawes insisted: “Kyle knows where the line is now and where he needs to be in terms of that line. He’s come a long way. He’s always been a pretty feisty character and is still, because he needs to be – it’s part of what makes him such a great player.
“But he’s able to control the fact teams haven’t even tried it on with him in this
Six Nations, is testament to how he’s matured.”
The 26-year-old proved as much by reacting to provocation from Australia in the quarter-final of the
World Cup, not by losing his rag, but scoring the winning try.
However, the real test comes now with the return of Jones and his fellow Welsh wind-up merchants. With that in mind, George Ford (left) has warned that it, and if any player goes for Sinckler, he will have the rest of the England team to reckon with.
“Sink probably reflected on that game last year, from an individual point of view, and learnt massively from it,” said the fly-half. “We learnt from it as a team, too. We have become more aware that those things are going to happen, and what we can do as a team to make sure it doesn’t escalate to the point where it will cost us.
“We have discussed what we would do to look after individuals, as you don’t want to get to a game without talking about it, and then think, ‘Jesus, what is going on here?’
“You have to anticipate it and be aware of it, otherwise, before you know it, five or 10 minutes has gone, momentum has shifted, and