Ben Youngs voices exactly what every England fan is thinking

Leicester Tigers scrum-half Ben Youngs has questioned the scheduling of England’s Autumn Nations Series fixtures, which saw them face Japan on the final weekend.

Following a campaign in which England only managed one with from four, the 127-cap former international believes it would have been beneficial to face the Brave Blossoms, a side ranked significantly lower than them, in their first fixture, which would have allowed the side to “iron out” any problems.

Instead, England hosted the All Blacks in the opening match of their campaign, a side who at the time were ranked two places above them in third, where they found themselves trailing 6-14 after the opening half hour of play.

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Speaking on his podcast For the Love of Rugby after England’s 59-14 win over Japan, Youngs was joined by his Leicester team-mate Anthony Watson, who was equally as confused by the scheduling.

The pair will not be alone with this view after an autumn campaign where Steve Borthwick’s side underachieved in light of the expectations heading into the month.

“Whoever organises the fixtures for the autumn,” Youngs said. “England have got to play someone like Japan or other nations similar to that level in round one. We can’t be playing them in the back end of the autumn.

“We almost need that game as the first game to get some game time under our belt, get some cohesion because we went New Zealand, Australia, South Africa then Japan, it should have been flipped the other way around. Japan should have been first, in my opinion, or a team, or of a Japan calibre. I think moving forward there needs to be an understanding to give England a better chance in terms of setting them up for the remainder of the autumn.

“We’ve been there as players mate, we understand the difference between going in against one of the teams that have just been playing The Rugby Championship, cohesion all that, to actually playing a team that sit outside the top eight or top 10, or whatever.

“We’ve played autumn games where you’ve played a Tonga, a Fiji, or Georgia teams like that and you almost iron out some of the early stuff that you need to then work forward after that.”

Watson added: “Yeah, I think that having the Japan game first would have been significantly easier and more useful to the England team but there’s got to be something in it that’s way above our pay grade as to why they they schedule it like that. Because it doesn’t seem to make sense, like you said.”