England vs South Africa: Stakes high as Eddie Jones is forced to shuffle pack for Boks opener

Search mission | Brad Shields in training ahead of Saturday’s opening autumn series Test against South Africa
David Rogers/Getty Images
Adam Hathaway31 October 2018

Eddie Jones has been the joker in the pack ever since he packed down as a sub-sized hooker playing for Randwick at Coogee Oval in Sydney grade rugby in the 1980s.

Now the pack is his major concern ahead of Saturday’s opening Test of the autumn series against South Africa at Twickenham.

Front row, second row and back row, plus midfield and the back three, are the headaches for the England head coach and he must have an ace up his sleeve after the latest squad culling.

Jones trimmed his party of fit men in Portugal to 25 last night, but it would be a brave person who would predict which XV he will name to start on Saturday when he shows his hand tomorrow.

Nathan Earle, Ted Hill, Alex Lozowski, Michael Rhodes, Sam Underhill, Richard Wigglesworth, Mike Brown, Joe Cokanasiga, Nick Schonert and Ben Morgan are back home by now and Courtney Lawes is rehabbing on the Algarve.

Second guessing Jones is a hazardous business. He has several problems to solve — the biggest one being the absence of No8 Billy Vunipola.

The younger Vunipola is one of the world’s most destructive ball carriers and has the almost unique talent of being able to make yards from a standing start.

With him sidelined with another broken arm, it seemed likely the recalled Ben Morgan would slip in for the visit of the Springboks. The Gloucester man won 31 caps up to 2015, but has been ignored by Jones until now. He would certainly have had added some experience and ballast into what will be a callow back row, but he has been jettisoned.

With Morgan out of the frame, Bath’s Zach Mercer would appear to have a shout to start in the middle of the back row, but he is no Billy and so Wasps’ more heavyweight Brad Shields could get the nod.

Bath second rows Charlie Ewels and Elliott Stooke are retained and it appears one of them will start alongside George Kruis in the engine room, leaving Maro Itoje to play at six.

Itoje started Saracens’ two recent Champions Cup games there and impressed with his carrying and, with Tom Curry at open-side, that may be Jones’s answer to his back-row conundrum.

The front row is decimated by the injury to Mako Vunipola and the retirement from international rugby of Joe Marler, so at loose-head it is a toss-up between Exeter pair Ben Moon and Alec Hepburn.

Moon started five of Exeter’s first eight matches, to Hepburn’s three, and on that basis would appear to be the front runner, but Jones is famously dismissive of the Premiership as a form guide.

At tight-head, it is a straight scrap between Harlequins’ Kyle Sinckler and another Exeter Chief, Harry Williams. Sinckler will be the favourite, having started all three Tests on the summer tour of South Africa.

Dylan Hartley missed that trip, with injury, and now finds himself sharing the captaincy duties with the man who led that tour, Owen Farrell. That gives Jones a bit of wriggle room if he wants to start Jamie George at hooker, but the odds are on Hartley starting.

Billy Vunipola might be a back rower, but his absence could also shape the midfield, where Jones will play another big ball carrier, either Manu Tuilagi or Ben Te’o, and could shift Farrell to fly-half at the expense of George Ford. Or he could stick with his favoured Ford-Farrell 10-12 axis and play one of the big carriers at outside centre at the expense of Henry Slade.

The omission of Mike Brown, one of Jones’s favoured lieutenants, caused one of the biggest stirs when the squad was cut, but it opens the door for a Chris Ashton recall.

Brown, a full-back, played wing in all three Tests in South Africa, so Ashton, or Jack Nowell, could step in. Jonny May is a certainty to start on the other flank, meaning Elliot Daly should pick up where he left off in the summer at 15.

Jones could do with coming up trumps. Lose to South Africa and it would be six defeats in the last seven Tests, with world champions the All Blacks to come. The whole house of cards could collapse.

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