ASHTON BACK FOR ENGLAND
Jones recalls winger for All Blacks test because he can sniff out a try
CHRIS ASHTON will be unleashed on New Zealand at Twickenham tomorrow with instructions from Eddie Jones to play with a smile on his face.
Ashton makes his first England start for four years in place of the benched Jack Nowell on the right wing after impressing during his 15-minute spell as a substitute in the 12-11 victory over South Africa.
The 31-year-old wing has amassed 40 caps in a Test career interrupted by a run of lengthy suspensions, falling out of favour with successive England coaches and a season-long spell at Toulon.
Now restored to the starting XV, his strike rate of 19 tries is evidence of a predatory instinct that Jones insists must be allowed to flourish.
“Chris can sniff a try from anywhere and to beat New Zealand you have got to score tries. He’s in good form, has looked sharp and is a try-getter,” said Jones.
“That try-scoring skill is nothing coached. Guys like that, the only thing you can do is stuff them up by coaching them.
“You just give them a free rein, give them a framework to operate in, make them feel good about themselves, make sure they’ve got a smile on their face and away they go.”
Since Jones took charge Ashton has served 30 weeks’ worth of suspensions for biting, making contact with the eye area and a tip tackle, the last offence limiting him to only one appearance for Sale this season after joining them in the summer.
“If he hadn’t got into so much trouble, he’d have played a few Tests already,” said Jones.
“He’s always up to no good. Wherever there’s trouble, there’s Ashton.
“He might have a deal with a lawyer that he gets paid extra if the lawyer gets extra work.”
Manu Tuilagi is overlooked for the bench after recovering from a minor groin strain as England look to restore him to full fitness in time for the final two matches of the autumn against Japan and Australia.
Jones has made two further changes with Ben Moon coming in for Alec Hepburn at loosehead prop and Sam Underhill replacing openside Tom Curry, who has been ruled out of the rest of the autumn by an ankle injury.
Owen Farrell will continue to co-captain the team one week after he escaped disciplinary action for a controversial injury-time tackle on Andre Esterhuizen.
While that challenge cast a spotlight on Farrell’s physical approach, Jones believes it is England’s playmaker who is given insufficient protection by referees while borderline hits on Ireland’s Johnny Sexton are often condemned.
“If he was Sexton then we’d be able to complain about him, but because he’s Owen Farrell he’s allowed to be hit late. He’s tough so he gets up and he plays,” said Jones.
“He’s a tough rooster, a warrior. He takes the ball to the line, he puts his body on the line, he doesn’t play in a dinner suit.
“We manage him every week. Players like him are never 100 per cent right. They get on the field, they play and they give you everything they’ve got and he’s like that.
“He wants to play every week. If we are playing marbles on a Wednesday, he wants to play. He’s a competitor. You can’t put blokes like him in cotton wool.”
Courtney Lawes, meanwhile, hopes that talisman New Zealand lock Brodie Retallick has been sleeping in the bed that exacerbated his own back injury.
Lawes missed the 12-11 victory over South Africa with a problem that initially surfaced early last month and grew more severe when having to squeeze his 6ft 7in frame into a single bed at a local hotel the night before Northampton’s defeat to Leicester at Twickenham.
The All Blacks are staying at the same accommodation ahead of Saturday’s Test against England, which sees Lawes named on the bench having been restored to full fitness. The British and Irish Lions second row joked it “would be good” if the influential Retallick had been allocated the same bed this week.
“I hurt my back – I tore a disc – the week before the Leicester game and it was kind of settling down but I was touch and go,” said Lawes. “Then I slept in a not great bed and that just wrote it off. It didn’t actually make my back any worse, it just didn’t allow me to improve enough to play.”
Retallick famously failed to correctly name a single England player when asked during the summer tour to New Zealand in 2014.
The closest he came was ‘Michael Lawes’, who at the time was mayor of Whanganui, presumably in reference to Courtney Lawes.
England: E Daly (Wasps); C Ashton (Sale), H Slade (Exeter), B Te’o (Worcester), J May (Leicester); O Farrell (Saracens, co-capt), B Youngs (Leicester); B Moon (Exeter), D Hartley (Northampton, co-capt), K Sinckler (Harlequins), M Itoje (Saracens), G Kruis (Saracens), B Shields (Wasps), S Underhill (Bath), M Wilson (Newcastle). Replacements: J George (Saracens), A Hepburn (Exeter), H Williams (Exeter), C Ewels (Bath), C Lawes (Northampton), D Care (Harlequins), G Ford (Leicester) J Nowell (Exeter).
He puts his body on the line, he doesn’t play in a dinner suit. England coach Eddie Jones on the durability of the side’s co-captain Owen Farrell