No one can match England's squad strength, claims Jones

Eddie Jones believes the 23-man squad he has selected for England’s Six Nations clash with Italy sets them apart from any other side in world rugby.

Jones made four changes to his side for Sunday’s match at Twickenham, with Ben Te’o to make his first England start, while Danny Care, James Haskell and Jonny May are promoted from the bench.

There is also a return to the squad for Mako Vunipola following his recovery from a knee injury, but centre Jonathan Joseph is left out.

Jones is delighted with the options available to him as England look to make it three wins out of three in this year’s championship, and says even the likes of New Zealand and Australia cannot compete with England’s strength in depth.

“I’ve picked a strong side from one to 23, and if you look at the quality of our bench I don’t think there is any team in the world that has that quality,” the Australian told a media conference. 

“We’re looking forward to playing a really intense, high-performance game against Italy. We know it is going to be tough, particularly the first 20 minutes, we’ve got to show a lot of composure but we’ve had a great preparation and can’t wait to play.

“We want to win the Six Nations, and to win the Six Nations we need to beat Italy and beat Italy well.

“It is an important Test match for us and our only consideration is to play well.”

Eddie Jones talks Farrell, Te’o and Haskell ahead of Sunday’s #ENGvITA clash at Twickenham: https://t.co/oNKHWPQ2L8 pic.twitter.com/BdZzqLaDAb

— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) February 24, 2017

Meanwhile, Te’o’s inclusion in the starting XV is an experiment from Jones as he looks to assess all his options in the centre.

“He’s a ball runner, our backs have been predominantly passing players and we just felt it would give us another option to play a ball runner in there,” Jones added.

“It gives us a great opportunity to see if can be another option for us at 13. We know we’ve got Jonathan Joseph who’s a very good player, we know Elliot Daly can play there very well and we want to have a third option.”