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England absorb new Manu Tuilagi blow as George Smith talks tackles

Tuilagi has been touted by England’s new head coach Eddie Jones as a candidate for the problematic inside-centre position

Hugh Godwin
Saturday 30 January 2016 00:42 GMT
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Tuilagi was forced to call off an appearance for Leicester due to injury
Tuilagi was forced to call off an appearance for Leicester due to injury

England’s efforts to make peace with their public after the ignominious World Cup failure last October were haunted yesterday by another ghost of the recent past. An open training session that drew 15,000 enthusiastic spectators to Twickenham coincided with news of a fresh injury to Manu Tuilagi.

Tuilagi has been touted by England’s new head coach Eddie Jones as a candidate for the problematic inside-centre position, and it was hoped the wrecking-ball back would be ready for national service in the concluding Six Nations Championship matches against Wales and France in mid-March.

But Tuilagi was forced to call off the planned fourth appearance of his comeback for his club Leicester at Gloucester on Saturday afternoon after 15 months out with a chronic groin injury. Richard Cockerill, the Leicester director of rugby, said: “Manu has just tweaked a hamstring which will probably mean a couple of weeks out.”

The England No 12 jersey will be worn in the Six Nations opener in Scotland next Saturday by Owen Farrell of Saracens, who prefers to play at fly-half, with Bath’s uncapped Ollie Devoto on the bench covering Farrell and the starting No 10, George Ford. With Exeter’s Henry Slade also absent injured, the 22-year-old, 6ft 4in Devoto has made an unexpected leap forward, despite limited match time at his club behind Kyle Eastmond and Rhys Priestland. Indeed, Devoto is joining Exeter next season to rectify that.

“Ollie’s a big kid and he has a deftness of touch and a strong kicking game with a left-footed option,” said Paul Gustard, the new England defence coach. “People are licking their lips about the potential of two ball players at 10 and 12.” Asked about Farrell’s abilities in the fly-half and centre positions, Gustard described them as “obviously at an unbelievably high level” and “I think he’ll prove to be a very good 12”, respectively.

George Smith’s mastery of breakdown skills is beyond question, and Gustard was impressed by the half-hour defensive tutorial the former Wallaby gave England’s back-rowers earlier this week. “The way he explained it was very refreshing,” said Gustard. “He wasn’t thinking like an Anglo-Saxon would think, where you try and build a process about a tackle. He just said ‘we want to get the ball’, and the tackle happened to be in the way of the ball, whereas I would have a mechanical process.

“Watching the way his body moved – I was speaking to Chris [Robshaw] and James [Haskell], two experienced internationals with 50 caps a pop, and they felt a little bit embarrassed afterwards, how poor their body moved compared to his. They can take a lot from how easy his body moves across the ground in that close-quarter situation.”

With training time at a premium before Murrayfield, Gustard is installing five “key pillars” of defence, starting with keeping as many players on their feet as possible. For his part, Devoto said he had set five or six alarm calls to be up for one of Jones’s famous early starts: a 6.30am nutrition and gym session earlier this week, that Devoto said none of the squad had missed.

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