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Injury scare for England ahead of Monday's World Cup squad reveal

By PA
(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

England are confident that Tom Curry will play a role in their build-up to the Rugby World Cup as he recovers from a twisted ankle. Curry sustained the injury in training this week and will be sidelined for up to a fortnight, potentially ruling him out of the opening two matches of the Summer Nations Series which begins against Wales in Cardiff on Saturday.

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The Sale flanker is a certainty to be picked in Steve Borthwick’s World Cup squad when it is announced on Monday, but England will take no risks with the fitness of one of their most influential players.

“We are very hopeful (he will play this month). We don’t think it will be too long, but we will be smart with him as well,” defence coach Kevin Sinfield said.

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      Any concern over Henry Arundell’s hamstring injury has lifted after the explosive wing made a return to full training on Thursday.

      England play the first of two Tests against Wales at the Principality Stadium fielding a line-up populated with players who are on the fringe of World Cup selection.

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      Only Freddie Steward, Marcus Smith, Danny Care, Ellis Genge and Will Stuart are assured of their places in the 33-man squad, while the others are hoping to make a final impression on Borthwick. Sinfield, however, has downplayed the trial element of the visit to Cardiff as England look to build winning momentum.

      “First and foremost, it’s a Test match. I’m sure some players will have selection in the back of their minds, but we want to show how we have improved,” Sinfield said.

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      “It would be unfair to say it’s all on this game because it’s not. We have got to take into account the last eight weeks, how players have performed throughout the season and exactly what we need going forward.

      “There are some wonderful players who will miss out, sadly, because we can’t take everybody. We will try to get to the right place with the right balance within the squad.”

      One player who has been making waves this summer is Northampton’s all-action back row Tom Pearson, whom Genge insisted trains in the same we he plays – “like a man possessed”.

      Pearson makes his debut on Saturday with a real chance of securing a place at the World Cup despite his inexperience.

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      “Tom has been outstanding. We have all seen his physicality and how he plays the game and his explosive nature with London Irish last season. We’re all looking forward to seeing him play and he’s been excellent in camp,” Sinfield said.

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      J
      JW 2 hours ago
      Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

      I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


      He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


      The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


      The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


      The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


      It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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