Jones sweats on injuries and chaotic travel plans
England head coach Eddie Jones is dealing with several injury headaches before announcing his squad to travel to Australia this morning with No8s Alex Dombrandt and Billy Vunipola both major doubts.
Dombrandt will see a specialist this morning after suffering a knee injury in training that ruled him out of England’s heavy defeat by the Barbarians. Vunipola is also unlikely to tour for the three-test series against the Wallabies after suffering a concussion in Saracens’ 15-12 defeat by Leicester in the Premiership final on Saturday.
“He [Dombrandt] will see a specialist tomorrow and we’ll find out,” Jones said. “Vunipola would be [an option] if he was fit, but he’s not fit. At the end of the game he got knocked out, which means he’s got a mandatory stand-down. And if he’s had concussions before he’s got a longer mandatory stand-down.”
With Sam Simmonds already ruled out, that would leave Callum Chick as the only specialist No8 in Jones’s current squad with flankers Tom Curry and Lewis Ludlam offering options. England were already missing Kyle Sinckler, Manu Tuilagi and Henry Slade.
Fly-half George Ford would appear to be another casualty from the Premiership final with an ankle injury, while Jones must make calls on the availability of prop Joe Marler, who was not included in the squad for the Barbarians match, and scrum-half Ben Youngs, whose sister-in-law Tiffany died recently. Prop Mako Vunipola is likely to make the cut having last appeared for England in the 2021 Six Nations.
“We’ve still got one or two spots we need to look at and a number of injury concerns,” Jones said. “Ford not too promising but I don’t want to jump the gun.”
A further complication is that England are unable to fly on the same flight to Australia because of a lack of business-class seats. “We can’t all get on the same plane,” Jones said. “We’re on four different planes and we don’t all arrive together until Thursday morning.”