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The exclusion of Farrell and other key England team talking points
By Liam Heagney
It has been a busy Thursday for England, finishing off their preparations before flying to Dublin this afternoon for this Saturday’s Summer Nations Series clash with Ireland amid all the heated debate over their skipper Owen Farrell.
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That controversy took another twist during the day, World Rugby exercising their right to appeal Tuesday’s decision by an independent disciplinary hearing to free Farrell to play with immediate effect after they rescinded the red card brandished to him last Saturday versus Wales.
This notice of appeal has resulted in England opting to omit Farrell from their match day 23 to face their Irish. Here, RugbyPass takes a look at those decisions and some of the other major talking points from an XV showing six changes from last weekend:
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Ford silver lining to Farrell’s absence
Ahead of his scheduled Thursday evening media briefing in Dublin, Borthwick used the England team media release as an opportunity to get his explanation out there for not selecting Farrell to play this weekend even though he was cleared to do so on Tuesday.
Borthwick claimed his “original planning” for the Summer Nations Series was to play Farrell in Dublin against his father Andy’s Ireland team, but the impact which the preparation for Tuesday’s three-and-a-half-hour virtual hearing had on the skipper’s training was what counted against him when it came to selection.
There was no reference in Borthwick’s quotes regarding Thursday’s development that World Rugby are appealing Tuesday’s disciplinary hearing verdict, re-opening the possibility of Farrell receiving a ban that would affect his Rugby World Cup participation.
If there is a bright side to all the controversy regarding Farrell it is that George Ford is set to start his first match for England since the March 2021 Guinness Six Nations thrashing by the Irish at Aviva Stadium, a game where he was partnered at half-back by Ben Youngs, this weekend’s No9 following the cruel injury that has ruled out Jack van Poortvliet.
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The Ford/Youngs combination, which was named on the replacements bench last weekend, enormously helped to rescue England from their perilous situation versus the Welsh.
Now is their big opportunity to show they can create some oomph from the off and potentially provide Borthwick’s generally struggling team with a more creative alternative to the Farrell/van Poortvliet combination which hadn’t gelled. The starving England attack needs it to work.
No load sharing for three particular players
Load is a word that had been regularly heard this month from all the countries preparing for the World Cup in France. The four-match England Summer Nations Series programme was crafted so that plenty of minutes would be spread around to ensure the 33-strong squad is as ready as it can be for an RWC schedule that begins versus Argentina in Marseille on September 9.
The naming of Anthony Watson and Manu Tuilagi to start and the inclusion of Ollie Chessum on their bench means that just three of the current 33 have yet to feature this month.
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Injury rehabbers Jack Walker and Tom Curry are still off limits while Alex Mitchell, who was called into the squad on Monday after confirmation of the seriousness of van Poortvliet’s ankle injury, wasn’t considered against the Irish, Danny Care instead named as the scrum-half cover behind Youngs.
There are anomalies to this spreading of the load, however. Saturday’s Aviva Stadium fixture will be the third consecutive start for full-back Freddie Steward, midfielder Joe Marchant and tighthead Will Stuart, while Ollie Lawrence has been chosen as 23rd man after two starts at centre.
That’s a busy schedule and the hope will be that it won’t prove too much for them given the heavy-duty task on the horizon in France. Sub hooker Theo Dan is another who has been chosen for his third successive match but while he got minutes in Cardiff, he was left stewing on the bench for the entire 80 versus Wales – a situation that highlighted the importance of the clear first-choice No2 Jamie George.
Time for Billy V to zip through the gears
Last week’s build-up heavily featured Billy Vunipola and his first England appearance since the 2022 Autumn Nations Series when Eddie Jones was still in charge. It was very much a stuck-in-second-gear performance from the No8 against the Welsh, but he has a habit of being a slow burner when returning from a layoff.
Just 22 metres from nine carries was not the sort of dominant effort that England were banking on Vunipola bringing to the mix now that they have axed Alex Dombrandt from their plans. That was a third-best return from an England forward, Ben Earl and George generating better ball-carrying stats.
Vunipola gets a second go this weekend to get up to speed and there are no excuses for an improvement not to happen, especially as he has been named in an unchanged back row with Courtney Lawes and Earl.
If the theory is they should grow as a combination the more they play, getting more familiar and composed with each other, what they construct will be of crucial importance against the Irish.
