Jones pits Lions against Pumas
Ten tourists in 26-man squad to face Argentina Watson set to start while Daly is close to fitness
Anthony Watson is expected to be named in England’s starting XV to face Argentina at Twickenham on Saturday after Eddie Jones, the head coach, last night retained 10 of his British and Irish Lions players in a 26-man squad.
Watson, who emerged as one of the stars of the Lions tour which ended in a drawn Test series against the All Blacks, is poised to start despite playing in three warm-up games and all but eight minutes of the three Tests on the tour of New Zealand.
Jones had previously indicated that he was considering resting some of his Lions Test players during the autumn because of the physical demands of the tour and their conditioning over the course of the season.
Having named an experimental squad for the two-test tour of Argentina in June, Jones said in July he would regard the three-test series this autumn as “a continuation of the June series”.
“A number of the Lions guys we probably won’t play. We’ll give them reconditioning periods to get right for the World Cup. It is about increasing depth again,” said Jones, who names his starting XV tomorrow. But even if the likes of Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje, who played a minimal role in training yesterday, are rested, the England coach is now set to name a squad brimming with Lions experience against Los Pumas.
The party includes Lions Test players Jamie George, Mako Vunipola, George Kruis, Itoje, Courtney Lawes, Farrell, Jonathan Joseph, Watson and Elliot Daly.
Injuries have played their part in the consideration, with Jack Nowell, Billy Vunipola, Manu Tuilagi and Matt Mullan among those not available because of injury.
England have also been closely monitoring the conditioning levels of the squad.
Jonny May did not take a full part in training yesterday but Jones has not yet given up hope of selecting Leicester’s in-form winger, who picked up a hamstring injury in the warm-weather training camp in Portugal last week. Bath’s Semesa Rokoduguni has been retained as cover.
Daly also continued his remarkable recovery from a knee injury that was expected to rule him out of the first two Tests by playing a full part in training, which included a kicking session with former England World Cup winner Jonny Wilkinson. Dylan Hartley, who is expected to retain the captaincy with George staying on the bench despite starting for the Lions, said England’s primary focus was winning the Test against a side who will be in their World Cup pool in Japan in 2019. “We want to develop our game and be better than when we played them last,” said Hartley. “In two years’ time, we’d like to think that our game will have moved on considerably from next week. But our focus is to win every Test we are presented with. This one is no different, but there may be something extra to it psychologically, yeah.”
Chris Robshaw, England’s captain at the 2015 World Cup, said it was important that Jones’s side backed up their two Test wins against Los Pumas in June. “You want to put a good run of form together,” said Robshaw. “So, it does have a small impact, but a World Cup is a completely separate entity.
“We want to make sure we keep on building, beat Argentina and keep our game moving forward.”
Meanwhile, Marland Yarde, who was criticised last week by former Harlequins team-mate Robshaw for the disciplinary problems which led to the wing’s surprise departure to Sale in mid-season, broke his silence last night. Robshaw said Yarde had “run out of lives”. But Yarde told The Times: “I’d have expected different from him. No player enjoys that, especially from a team-mate I’ve shared a field with for the last four or five years.”