England need the difference the soon-to-be Gloucester fly-half can provide, with the national side’s attack needing a rebootGloucester is less a king’s home for Danny Cipriani and more a pretender’s bolthole. The fly-half is being released by Wasps at the end of the season but instead of making an expected lucrative move to France, he is taking a pay-cut to put himself in contention for next year’s World Cup after his international career was revived last week.Eddie Jones had ignored Cipriani for more than two years, with the England coach not seeing him as a starter ahead of George Ford and Owen Farrell and not wanting to risk souring the mood in the squad by harbouring a perceived recalcitrant tackle...
It will be hard for Brad Shields to go straight from Super Rugby into the England side in South Africa but Ben Earl, Jack Willis and Jonny Hill lack experience in this company, tooEngland’s tour squad for South Africa reads like one of those wedding‑day rhymes for superstitious brides: something old, something new, something borrowed, something out of the blue. There is more than enough in Eddie Jones’s trousseau for the three-Test series next month to raise eyebrows in both hemispheres.Three names particularly stand out in a 34-man squad shaped partly by injury and Jones’s desire to rest certain individuals. Danny Cipriani is finally back in the frame at the age of 30, granted one last chance to show he...
The head coach faces a dilemma over how many to rest and how many to blood with a revived South Africa lying in waitWhen Eddie Jones was asked the other day about England’s disappointing Six Nations campaign he admitted that, in retrospect, he might have handled things differently. “I think I should have refreshed the side,” he told Sky Sports, reflecting on the lowly fifth-place finish. “I should have probably brought some fresh blood in, sharpened things up.”It is every head coach’s recurring dilemma, particularly in a post-Lions season. Stick with the tried and tested, the players who in this case had barely lost for the two preceding years, or cast the net slightly wider? Sometimes there is little other...
To parachute the New Zealand-born forward into the England squad sight unseen recalls the unsatisfactory precedents of Ireland’s Michael Bent and Scotland’s Brendan LaneyThe story of Brad Shields is a tale of everyday modern professional sport. Born in Masterton, on North Island, the back-row forward has played all his rugby in New Zealand, represented the Junior All Blacks in 2011 against an England Under-20 side containing Owen Farrell, George Ford, Elliot Daly and Mako Vunipola and is the captain of the Hurricanes. Now, on the basis of his English parentage, he wants to be part of England’s touring squad to South Africa in June.We should wish him good luck, clearly, as he seeks to become a capped England international. He...
In their most challenging season this decade, Sarries face Leinster in the Champions Cup on Easter Sunday looking to do what Eddie Jones’ men could not – beat an Irish sideLast May, English rugby celebrated a double double. Saracens retained the European Champions Cup a couple of months after England had held on to the Six Nations title. In two years, they had lost one match between them in the tournaments, the international against Ireland in Dublin that March.Five Saracens were involved in England’s 2017 Six Nations campaign, a sixth, George Kruis, was named with the quintet in the Lions’ squad for the tour to New Zealand – Billy Vunipola pulled out – and a seventh, Alex Lozowski, went on...