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Owen Farrell officially ruled out of England clash

By PA
Owen Farrell /Getty

George Furbank will start England’s Autumn Nations Series opener against Tonga at fly-half after Owen Farrell was ruled out of the Twickenham clash because of a positive test for coronavirus.

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Furbank replaced Farrell in the team to win his fifth cap, with Courtney Lawes leading the team from blindside flanker.

Marcus Smith was also an option to replace England’s captain as chief playmaker but he remained on the bench after a leg injury limited his training this week to one session on Friday.

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Head coach Eddie Jones said: “As Owen is unavailable to us, we’ve made these changes to the team to face Tonga today.

“It’s a great chance for the team to see how we adapt to challenges and keep focused on preparing for a big game. We can’t wait to play in front of a full crowd at Twickenham.”

England on Friday morning initially revealed Farrell had tested positive for Covid but only ruled him out of the first of three fixtures at Twickenham this month 90 minutes before kick-off.

Given that confirmed cases must isolate for 10 days, it means Farrell will also sit out Saturday’s clash with Australia.

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Lawes leads the team for the first time, 12 years after winning the first of his 87 England caps.

ENGLAND TEAM VS TONGA:
15. Freddie Steward (Leicester Tigers, 2 caps)
14. Adam Radwan (Newcastle Falcons, 1 cap)
13. Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs, 40 caps)
12. Manu Tuilagi (Sale Sharks, 43 caps)
11. Jonny May (Gloucester Rugby, 66 caps)
10. George Furbank (Northampton Saints, 4 caps)
9. Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers, 109 caps)
1. Ellis Genge (Leicester Tigers, 30 caps)
2. Jamie George (Saracens, 59 caps)
3. Kyle Sinckler (Bristol Bears, 44 caps)
4. Maro Itoje (Saracens, 48 caps)
5. Jonny Hill (Exeter Chiefs, 9 caps)
6. Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints, 87 caps)
7. Sam Underhill (Bath Rugby, 24 caps)
8. Tom Curry (Sale Sharks, 33 caps)

REPLACEMENTS:
16. Jamie Blamire (Newcastle Falcons, 2 caps)
17. Joe Marler (Harlequins, 72 caps)
18. Will Stuart (Bath Rugby, 12 caps)
19. Charlie Ewels (Bath Rugby, 23 caps)
20. Alex Dombrandt (Harlequins, 1 cap)
21. Alex Mitchell (Northampton Saints, uncapped)
22. Marcus Smith (Harlequins, 2 caps)
23. Mark Atkinson (Gloucester Rugby, uncapped)

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Flankly 1 hour 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?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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