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International tug-of-war over Lynagh isn't over yet

Louis Lynagh /Getty Images

The ball is in Eddie Jones’ court in the race for Louis Lynagh, but Wallabies coach Dave Rennie won’t concede the son of Australian great Michael Lynagh is lost to this country yet.

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Italian-born Louis, 20, who’s lived in England since he was five, has been named in Jones’ extended 45-man England squad ahead of three Tests that include a clash with the Wallabies next month.

Younger brother Tom has moved to Brisbane on a contract with the Queensland Reds and declared his dream is to wear Wallaby gold like his father and fellow five-eighth.

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A fullback or winger, Louis opted to stay in England with Harlequins and former Wallabies coach Jones made the first move in a sequence that could see the brothers one day clash at Test level.

But Rennie said Australia’s director of rugby Scott Johnson had spoken to Michael about his son’s allegiance and there remained an avenue for Louis to instead play for the Wallabies.

“Obviously Eddie’s well aware of his lineage and (the need to) catch him quickly,” Rennie said on Friday.

“But we’ll see how things go there, whether they use him or not over the next period and whether there’s any interest in him to come back to Australia.

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“Not until he’s capped (is he England’s).”

Jones will have his first opportunity to blood Lynagh against Tonga on November 6, before they face Australia and then South Africa in consecutive weeks all at London’s Twickenham Stadium.

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Flankly 2 hours ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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