• ‘We need to start winning now,’ says George Ford
For an assortment of reasons England’s first Rugby World Cup warm-up Test may prove the most instructive of the lot. By accident or design it pits a largely experimental England side against an almost full-strength Wales on the eve of Eddie Jones’s final 31-man squad announcement for Japan, making it a match neither team can easily dismiss as a casual summer fling.
Should Wales win well at Twickenham and continue to jostle New Zealand at the top of the world rankings, the Six Nations champions will set out for south-east Asia feeling justifiably good about themselves. If, on the other hand, England’s eclectic pick-and-mix of a starting XV can give Wales’s first-choice regulars a hurry-up it will strongly suggest that Jones – Eddie not Alun Wyn – is potentially further ahead of the curve.
Written by Robert Kitson
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/aug/09/england-wales-experimental-lineup under the title “England’s experimental lineup looks to hit ground running against Wales”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
