Ben Youngs could be ruled out of the rest of the Six Nations after the England head coach Eddie Jones confirmed the scrum-half has suffered what appeared to be a serious knee ligament injury in the victory over Italy. England’s 46-15 triumph was marred by the first-half injury sustained by Youngs which prompted a lengthy stoppage before he was taken off on a stretcher. Danny Care, who had been pushing to start in Rome, came off the bench and is now almost certain to start against Wales.
Jones also confirmed that with a training session planned for Monday and only two scrum-halves named in England’s initial Six Nations squad, a replacement for Youngs has already been called for. Last month Jones named Richard Wigglesworth, Dan Robson and Ben Vellacott as the next three scrum-halves in line.
Asked about Youngs’ injury, Jones said: “He’ll get an examination tomorrow. But he’s unlikely to be available for the Wales game. I’m always optimistic. It’s a knee injury, it looks like a ligament.”
England scored four tries in the final half an hour with Sam Simmonds scoring his first just moments after Tommaso Boni had a try disallowed that would have brought Italy to within three points with a conversion. Nonetheless, England sit top of the Six Nations table after the opening weekend and Jones highlighted the set piece as the most pleasing aspect of his side’s performance.
“I was really pleased with the effort today,” he said. “It was always going to be a difficult team to play, sun shining, plenty to play for. They’ve got good young players. We had to do the simple things well. Scrum and lineout were absolutely first class. I don’t think we have scrummed that well since I’ve been in charge of England.”
Jones refused to be drawn on Saturday’s fixture with Wales, who stunned Scotland with a commanding victory in Cardiff over the weekend. But he did reveal England have taken the unusual step of arranging a training session at Pennyhill Park on Monday.
“We’ve got a programme in place that’s slightly unusual. We’ll train tomorrow, have Tuesday as a recovery day and we feel like we’ll be ready by Friday to face Wales,” he said.
Italy impressed in patches against England two well-worked tries through Tommaso Benvenuti and Mattia Bellini but they are still without a Six Nations win since 2015. “I’m proud and angry,” said Italy’s head coach, Conor O’Shea. “I’m proud because I think we saw a team that has a lot of potential out there for the future and played some really good rugby against a great side. We were up against the No 2 side in the world and we caused them a lot of problems.”
