Jolt for Jones England crisis deepens as Mako Vunipola is ruled out of series
Prop and Isiekwe ruled out of autumn Tests Jones leaving selection to the last minute
‘I feel for Billy. We all hope that his luck will change’
Eddie Jones’s worst fears were realised last night after Saracens prop Mako Vunipola was ruled out of England’s autumn internationals with a torn calf.
With Saracens second row Nick Isiekwe missing for around eight weeks with an ankle injury, England’s head coach will be without 16 players as he announces his squad for the Quilter International series against South Africa, New Zealand, Japan and Australia this morning. “It looks like it’s going to be around six weeks,” Mark Mccall, the Sara- cens director of rugby, said. “Nick will be around eight weeks with a syndesmosis injury of his ankle. That doesn’t need surgery, either.”
The loss of Vunipola will be felt acutely. Not only does the 27-yearold rank among England’s few world-class players, but Jones is short of options in the loosehead department following Joe Marler’s retirement from international rugby and injuries to Ellis Genge, Matt Mullan and Beno Obano. No other current English loosehead has started a Test. Alec Hepburn, who made two replacement appearances in this year’s Six Nations, is the next cab on the rank, while Exeter team-mate Ben Moon and Gloucester’s Val Rapava Ruskin should come into the equation for the opening Test against the Springboks at Twickenham on Nov 3. Bath’s Nathan Catt and Harlequins’ Lewis Boyce have also featured in previous training squads.
Vunipola suffered the injury in Saracens’ 13-3 Heineken Champions Cup win away to Glasgow, in which his brother, Billy, broke an arm and Isiekwe was also injured.
Mccall assigned their losses to “bad luck” which, in the case of No8 Billy, seems particularly cruel. This is the third time that Vunipola has broken his arm this year, which has limited the 25-year-old to two England appearances. After undergoing surgery, Saracens expect him to be out for 10-12 weeks. That it was his left arm that was broken, rather than his previously troublesome right, proved the smallest crumb of comfort.
“I feel for Billy, he’s devastated,” Mccall said. “We all hope his luck will change. We existed without Billy for almost the whole of last year, if we’re honest. Billy understands Duncan’s [Taylor, who ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament] injury is way worse than his, season-ending.”
Like his brother, Vunipola’s injury is compounded by the absence of his usual stand-ins with Exeter’s Sam Simmonds out for up to nine months with an ACL injury and Nathan Hughes facing a lengthy ban. Hughes’ original disciplinary hearing for allegedly punching or striking Gloucester flanker Lewis Ludlow in a Gallagher Premiership match was adjourned after he tweeted “what a joke” during the proceedings. As the reconvened hearing went long into last night with a vedict to be announced this morning, Hughes deleted his Twitter account. Nothing irks disciplinary panels more than their processes being called into disrepute.
Jones did receive a rare slither of positive news after Saracens centre Alex Lozowski received a two-week ban for a dangerous entry of a ruck against Glasgow, which will leave him free to play in all four Tests, while Maro Itoje and Jamie George, who both sustained broken noses in the fixture, are fit to play this weekend against Lyon.
Even if not all of the 16 absentees are front-line players, Jones will still be missing at least six firstchoice players. He will need to employ all his coaching nous, not only to fill the gaps left at No8 and loosehead, but also to solve the task of replicating the ball-carrying impact that the Vunipolas bring.
Last night, it appeared that Jones was leaving many of the decisions over his 36-man squad until the last minute, with many players on the periphery of selection, such as Gloucester fly-half Danny Cipriani and Exeter flanker Don Armand, still awaiting news. However, Chris Ashton, of Sale, is set to be selected, despite not playing a competitive match this season, having served a seven-week suspension for a tiptackle in a pre-season friendly.
Meanwhile, New Zealand World Cup winner Jerome Kaino has been banned for five weeks after striking Wales international centre Jamie Roberts during last Saturday’s Heineken Champions Cup game between Bath and Toulouse – an incident highlighted by The Daily Telegraph’s Charlie Morgan in his The Inside Line column on Monday.