Injured Youngs ruled out for four months
Scrum-half Richard Wigglesworth is in line for his first England cap since the 2015 World Cup after Ben Youngs was ruled out for four months with a knee injury.
Youngs tore his medial collateral ligament during England’s 46-15 victory against Italy and it is doubtful he will play again this season. Play was halted for several minutes as the 28-year-old was taken off the pitch on a stretcher with his leg heavily strapped after getting his knee caught in a ruck that caused him to let out a loud scream. The Leicester scrum-half will be assessed by a surgeon this week.
Until this point, England head coach Eddie Jones has relied upon Youngs and Danny Care as his scrum-half options. Now the injury has forced the matter and Jones has gone for the most experienced option he could find in the shape of 34-year-old Wigglesworth.
Probably the finest practitioner of the box-kick in the northern hemisphere, Wigglesworth is an expert game-manager and has played a vital role in European champions Saracens’ success.
Wigglesworth, who has won 27 caps, has received the summons ahead of Gloucester’s Ben Vellacott, who is believed to be in the wider Elite Player Squad, and Wasps’ Dan Robson. Like Exeter flanker Don Armand, Robson appears not to be rated by Jones despite his club form.
With Wigglesworth primed to appear among the replacements, Care is set to start against Wales
and will become England’s most capped scrum-half. By coming off the bench against Italy, Care equalled Matt Dawson’s record of 77 caps. By Saturday evening, Care will hold that title to himself, but his more immediate thoughts were with the fate of Youngs.
“You never want to see a bad injury like that and I was gutted to see Ben in so much pain,” Care said. “First thing’s first, he’s a good mate as well as a competitor for the shirt. He’s in pain and all our thoughts are with him.
“It would be great to get into the No 9 shirt for the Wales game having had 70 minutes under my belt which is great because I love being out there with the boys.”
As well as Wigglesworth, Exeter hooker Luke Cowan-dickie and Wasps No 8 Nathan Hughes have come into the 32-man squad.
Jones has revealed that England have been working on bringing more variety to their attack: “We don’t have a lot of big carriers so we’ve got to be inventive. George [Ford] and Owen [Farrell] together
see the game better than anyone. To be honest, I didn’t really know [if Ford and Farrell would work out to be the best]. And I still don’t.
“The best option may be Ford and Ben Te’o, the best option might be Farrell and Te’o, it might be Alex Lozowski. We’re not sure but we keep looking and those two guys together give us plenty of options.
“They’re getting a great understanding together on how to play and how to use their collective talent. That’s a key phrase for us – our game is based on collective talent.”