England squad selection raises some big questions

Coach’s policy in certain areas of the pitch leaves plenty of room for debate, writes

As much as Eddie Jones loves a selection curveball when it comes to his scrum-halves, his cautious conservatism makes Theresa May seem like a revolutionary radical. For the first three years of his reign, Ben Youngs and Danny Care had the No9 shirt under lock and key. Then Care fell out of favour and Gloucester’s Willi Heinz became the deputy to Youngs, who struggled badly opposite Faf de Klerk in the World Cup final.

A new decade and a new World Cup cycle represented the perfect opportunity for Jones to press the reset button. Dan Robson and Ben Spencer, 27-year-olds who have played a grand total of 28 and 24 minutes of Test rugby under Jones, are in prime form. There are a host of young pretenders who could have also been groomed.

Instead Jones hit repeat, regardless of Youngs’ form over the past 12 months. “We just feel that’s right,” Jones said of the alternative No9s. “We have got 10 days to prepare. I need Ben Youngs and Willi Heinz to train and if we have a third half-back, it cuts into their training time.”

By the time of the next World Cup, Youngs will be 34 and Heinz 37. That presents a problem unless Alex Mitchell’s duties are upgraded beyond “cleaning boots”. available, yet neither Exeter’s Sam Simmonds nor Harlequins’ Alex Dombrandt have been included. Instead, Tom Curry, Lewis Ludlam and the uncapped Ben Earl are expected to fill in.

“There are some good young players out there; I’ve been watching them very carefully to see if they are the right sort of No 8 for us,” Jones said. “We’ve decided to go for a different way of playing at No 8, without Billy.

“You are always looking at a balance between your four, five, six, seven, eight, a balance between ball-running, defensive and work-rate capabilities. We’ve got a view of how we can be most effective in that area without a Billy-type player.”

That could mean moving either Courtney Lawes or Maro Itoje across to blind side and shifting the “Kamikaze Kids”, Sam Underhill