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The Irish verdict on rookie Pearson's latest England involvement
By
Liam Heagney
London Irish are hopeful that Tom Pearson has returned from Jersey another step closer to making his England Test debut. The back-rower, who only made his Gallagher Premiership debut in October 2021, was called into Eddie Jones’ squad after it was decided to allow Courtney Lawes to continue his recovery from a concussion at home on Northampton.
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Having since seen the youngster celebrate his 23rd birthday in midweek on the Channel Island, Exiles boss Declan Kidney has expressed optimism that the presence of Pearson at the five-day preparation camp can result in a first match day involvement over the course of the upcoming four-game series that begins against Argentina on November 6.
Asked for a character reference on Pearson, the England newcomer who negotiated the BUCS pathway via Cardiff Metropolitan University into professional rugby where he has now played 24 times for London Irish, Kidney said: “Tom has a good skillset. He is still a very young man. He has a good skillset bit in defence and attack, he knows the areas of his game that he needs to work on.
“I don’t know, I have started shying away from saying players at that level bring a level of physicality to it because they all do that but he is well able to hold his own in those stakes.”
Given this past week wasn’t the first time Pearson was called into an England training squad in 2022, how close does Kidney reckon he might be to joining Henry Arundell and Will Joseph as London Irish players capped by Jones?
“At international level back rows are always close (to getting picked) because the attrition rate is so high that you never know when it would come his way. You are always wanting a person to get his cap on total merit where everyone is fit, but the more experience our lads get inside England camp the more they know what it is about and when they go in second and third time around, it is not all new to them and they can settle into it a bit more.
“That is the disadvantage of the younger guys going into camp because it always takes them a while to settle in and to come through, but hopefully he will pick up something which will be a just reward for his work – but it [his call-up] also goes with the attrition rate from last weekend.
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“I saw some headline somewhere that there were a number of fellas not able to train this week which is not unusual for an international camp week. I have experience with that myself (in Ireland), but there were a good few knocks last weekend so I’m sure Eddie had to work his way around that and get on with preparation.
“There were probably more than the 36 players over in Jersey and by going to the meetings and seeing the walk-throughs… what is training? Training encompasses everything, meetings, walkthroughs, micro meetings, individual meetings, and then the team ones as well as intense training.”
