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'Genge and Sinckler are changing the face of England rugby'

(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Eddie Jones has hailed the diversity personified in the current England set-up by Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinckler, the props who will start a Test match together for their country for only the third time this Saturday. Despite being around for quite some time, they have only occupied the No1 and No3 jerseys at the same time just twice before – a March 2019 Six Nations win over Italy and last December’s Nations Cup final win over France. 

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Now they are set to pack down a third time together as the starting England props and coach Jones has hailed their presence in the front row versus Tonga as a great look for rugby in their country. “You look at Genge and Sinckler, they are changing the face of England rugby those two boys. There is a group there that is so exciting for us going forward, there are young men with the whole of the world of rugby in front of them

“They are funny those two, when they started off together they were both like raging bulls. They wanted to hit everything that moved, they wanted to argue everything, the whole world was against them and then they go through a period where they settle a little bit, they come to terms and now we are seeing the acceleration that will take both of them to be very good players for England. 

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“They have gone through this little maturation. They are both finding themselves a lot more, finding out what the strengths of their games are. They are both powerful scrummagers but they have had to adapt to the law changes, which has been difficult for them, and in terms of their attack, they have got an X-factor about them. 

“Both have a ball-carrying ability that isn’t seen in most props so we want them to keep working on that and keep working on their scrummaging and be the faces of diversity of England rugby. You look at their backgrounds, it’s a fantastic story for England rugby.”

It helps that they have a rapport to bring the best out of each other as they are often seen at England training with the gloves on for a sparring session. “They used to scrap without the gloves too,” quipped Jones. “Now they generally do the boxing with the gloves on but they both still have an unbelievable desire to want to be the best. That is the great thing about them.”

Dwelling specifically on Genge, the 26-year-old who was appointed Leicester skipper for this season, England coach Jones added: “If you go back to 2016 when he was first selected for England, he was a fairly rough and tumble young fellow who had to leave Bristol, was finding his mark under (Richard) Cockerill at Leicester and we selected him based on the potential that he could be a good scrummaging and exceptionally ball-carrying loosehead prop. 

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“In that five or six years, he has had a tough time in the England side. A lot of times he has been No3 loosehead behind two world-class looseheads in (Joe) Marler and Mako (Vunipola). He has continued to mature and maybe having a family has helped him and now he is a very respected member of the team. Still aggressive, still developing as a player but has great empathic skills, particularly with the younger players understanding what they are going through, and he has become a real leader in our team.”

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J
JW 1 hour ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Where? I remember saying "unders"? The LNR was formed by the FFR, if I said that in a way that meant the 'pro' side of the game didn't have an equal representation/say as the 'amateur' side (FFR remit) that was not my intent.


But also, as it is the governing body, it also has more responsibility. As long as WR looks at FFR as the running body for rugby in France, that 'power' will remain. If the LNR refuses to govern their clubs use of players to enable a request by FFR (from WR) to ensure it's players are able to compete in International rugby takes place they will simply remove their participation. If the players complain to the France's body, either of their health and safety concerns (through playing too many 'minutes' etc) or that they are not allowed to be part in matches of national interest, my understanding is action can be taken against the LNR like it could be any other body/business. I see where you're coming from now re EPCR and the shake up they gave it, yes, that wasn't meant to be a separate statement to say that FFR can threaten them with EPCR expulsion by itself, simply that it would be a strong repercussion for those teams to be removed (no one would want them after the above).


You keep bringing up these other things I cannot understand why. Again, do you think if the LNR were not acting responsibly they would be able to get away with whatever they want (the attitude of these posters saying "they pay the players")? You may deem what theyre doing currently as being irresponsible but most do not. Countries like New Zealand have not even complained about it because they've never had it different, never got things like windfall TV contracts from France, so they can't complain because theyre not missing out on anything. Sure, if the French kept doing things like withholding million dollar game payments, or causing millions of dollars of devaluation in rights, they these things I'm outlining would be taking place. That's not the case currently however, no one here really cares what the French do. It's upto them to sort themselves out if they're not happy. Now, that said, if they did make it obvious to World Rugby that they were never going to send the French side away (like they possibly did stating their intent to exclude 20 targeted players) in July, well then they would simply be given XV fixtures against tier 2 sides during that window and the FFR would need to do things like the 50/50 revenue split to get big teams visiting in Nov.

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