England have called up the Leicester captain Ed Slater to replace the injured Courtney Lawes for Saturday’s pivotal Six Nations game against Wales at Twickenham. Lawes twisted an ankle playing for Northampton against Saracens at the weekend, leaving the head coach, Eddie Jones, to decide between Maro Itoje and Joe Launchbury as George Kruis’s second-row partner.
Slater, like Lawes, can also play in either the second row or back row but is unlikely to be promoted to the matchday 23 unless more injuries strike. His club-mate Manu Tuilagi is also among the training squad gathered in Bagshot, with Jones still weighing up whether to include the centre on his replacements’ bench for Saturday’s fixture. Luther Burrell will provide cover for the injured Marland Yarde while Ollie Devoto is involved again after recovering from concussion.
Bath’s Jonathan Joseph, meanwhile, believes the various setbacks England have endured in recent seasons will drive them on as they seek to maintain their grand slam chances against the Welsh. Joseph missed the World Cup pool defeat to the same opponents in the autumn but suggests many of his team-mates will be using it as motivation this weekend.
“Each individual who was involved in that World Cup campaign will look back and it will hurt them massively,” said Joseph. “That will be a driving factor inside of everyone. We will prepare well as we always do and hopefully show what we are about on the pitch. The World Cup game was a tough one. The last 10 minutes were horrible to watch.”
England’s inability to secure a grand slam since 2003 will add further fuel to the fire, says Joseph. “We’ve had a lot of disappointment, a lot of setbacks and that’s hurt us as a team,” he said. “We know what it feels like to not quite get there. Obviously in the last Six Nations we didn’t quite make it and the World Cup was obviously not great for us.
“Everyone knows in their own minds that we don’t want to feel like that again. I think it’s good for us. It’s good to have that extra little driving factor inside to spur us on. We’re fully committed to doing all we can to win this next game. Fingers crossed we’re going to get that win.”
Joseph is also optimistic that, tactically, England have learned their World Cup lessons and are in a position where they can once more make Twickenham an uncomfortable place for opposition teams. “We’d like to think most teams would fear coming to Twickenham as it is a tough place to come. We need to back up the performances we have put in so far and teams will start to fear us again,” he said.
“It will be a massive contest and hopefully the backing of our home crowd will help us get the win. We just didn’t quite get it right when the World Cup came around but hopefully we’ll manage to cause them a bit of trouble when we attack them at the weekend.”
