Jones puts his faith in Tuilagi’s brute power
Picture the sight staring back at Australia this Saturday. Ben Te’o, one of the most combative inside centres currently in the international game, will stand outside the hard-hitting Owen Farrell and inside a 19-stone wing in Joe Cokanasiga. That is enough brute force alone to make the eyes water, yet behind them stands the wrecking ball that is Manu Tuilagi, ready to come on and unleash four years of injury misery on the Wallabies.
Make no bones about it, England have gone big this weekend.
The decision to play Te’o was a no-brainer after he came through games against South Africa and New
Zealand impressively to dispel doubts over his match fitness, while the one to stick with Cokanasiga on the wing was forced by the loss of Chris Ashton and Jack Nowell to injuries.
But by selecting Tuilagi, Jones hopes to see the man who he hopes can be the forefront of the batteringram attack that is being prepared for the 2019 Rugby World Cup. The only issue is that Tuilagi has not played a minute of competitive rugby since 6 October, although when you consider that he has played just 17 minutes of rugby in the last four-and-a-half years, seven weeks must have been a breeze for him.
Jones has been careful not to gamble Tuilagi and wreck another season, especially with the World Cup on the horizon, but he finally believes that the risk is worth the reward.
“As long as they’re fit and healthy to play, play them. Then fate takes its way,” Jones said. “I just think it’s been obvious he hasn’t been right. He just couldn’t give that last little one per cent or 0.5 per cent. He got through training (on Wednesday) – we had a pretty fair hit-out – and he got through it no problems at all. So he’s right to go. There’s no reason not to play him.
“He’s a good player. He doesn’t need to do a lot of training. All we’re wanting is for him to do the basics well. Good straight hard running, good hard low tackling, work off the ball, that’s all we want to see from him.
“I just want him to do the simple things well.”
There was a time not so long ago when Jones seemed at a loss with what to do with Tuilagi. Injury-prone, unable to string a handful of games together and having a poor disciplinary record by all accounts, Tuilagi appeared to burn his last remaining bridge when he was sent home from an England camp last year when he and Denny Solomona returned from a late-night drinking session that left them intoxicated for training the following day.
Having already missed the 2015 Rugby World Cup on disciplinary grounds, Tuilagi looked to have ruined another chance to make a name for himself at the global tournament, having been part of the ill-fated 2011 squad.
But this Tuilagi is not the same Tuilagi as the one who jumped off a ferry in Auckland Harbour seven years ago or who was convicted of assaulting two female police officers and a taxi driver in 2015. The realisation that chances to resurrect his England career are running low, combined with the birth of his first child Leilani Lea’auta with fiancée Chantelle Garrity, has seen him mature into the man he is today.
“I am so pleased for Manu because he has really stuck at it,” added Jones. “It’s disheartening when you get little injuries that just stop you from playing. But he has stuck at it, he has been positive, and he is getting rewarded.”