George Ford and Jack Nowell will return to the England starting 15 for tomorrow’s second Test against Australia in Melbourne.
Advertisement
WALLABIES head coach Michael Cheika says he won’t panic with his selections by making wholesale changes to his team for the second Test.
Eddie Jones will reunite the grand slam-winning 10-12 axis of Ford and Owen Farrell as the tourists target the victory that will complete an historic series in the southern hemisphere.
Jones has labelled Cheika “deceptive”, picked his team for him ahead of the first, suggested Cheika was fabricating David Pocock’s injury and this week said the Wallabies coach would be anxious about his team’s line out, scrum and physicality output in Brisbane. “Defensive intensity has to be high because Australia are going to be running from everywhere”.
Away from the scrum, England looked positive and were on top for large parts of the game.
Pocock suffered a fractured eye socket in Australia’s 39-28 defeat in Brisbane last weekend and will be sidelined for six weeks, robbing the Wallabies of their most influential player for the potentially decisive showdown at AAMI Park.
Last weekend there was an element of frustration in Nowell’s impact from the bench and one that saw him score the game clinching try.
“We want to be physical like we were last week but also tighten up our defence a bit as well”.
Things could yet become more complicated if the referee Craig Joubert takes a less than benign view of England’s scrummaging, but Jones has seen enough of the South African official to be suitably optimistic. If they want to say things about us – we’ve been respectful about them, the way they play the game and conduct themselves on the pitch. We will prepare as though he is going to play.
It is Jones’s belief, furthermore, that his side are capable of wrapping up the series with a week to spare.
“We’ve focused all our energy into this first game and to get that result is a good way to start our campaign”.
Haskell made no fewer than 18 tackles and won three turnovers in what was one of his best ever peformances for his country and he feels new Australian head coach Jones has been a revelation since agreeing to become England’s first ever foreign coach last November. “Australia will try and throw everything at us on Saturday and we’ll be ready for the challenge”.
Jones has promised that England will empty the tanks in pursuit of an historic series triumph. He is also without injured star breakdown poacher David Pocock.
Jones said he was bracing for a strong Australian response.
Advertisement
“He was one of the best young props at (last year’s) World Cup, everyone was talking about him and he obviously had a hard first Test against Dan Cole, so Sio must be very disappointed”.
