Here is a game to be played at home: how many uncapped “bolters” will be included on Friday in England’s 32-man squad for the autumn series matches against South Africa, Fiji, Argentina and Australia? It is partly a trick question because mystery men barely exist in the modern age of all-seeing digital audiences and search-engine know-alls. This is no longer the era of Ernie Woodhead, a Trinity College student picked at the last minute to represent England in Dublin in 1880 after several of the visiting team were laid low by seasickness on the ship crossing the Irish Sea.
We have moved on, too, from the late 1980s when Australia’s cricket selectors named Peter Taylor, an obscure New South Wales spinner with only six first-class appearances to his name, when everyone assumed they had meant to pick the future Test captain Mark Taylor, who had been scoring loads of runs in the Sheffield Shield. “Peter Who” duly took six for 78 against England in Sydney and an instant legend was born.
It is almost 20 years, furthermore, since Will Greenwood, at 24, became the last uncapped player to be picked to tour with the British & Irish Lions; hidden talent is not what it used to be. All that said, Eddie Jones is not the type of coach to opt for conformist orthodoxy and there are a number of promising players lurking in the shires whose names will be unfamiliar to those whose rugby watching is confined to Twickenham’s corporate boxes.
Injuries have also potentially opened a few doors, with Manu Tuilagi, James Haskell and Jack Clifford already ruled out; Owen Farrell, George Kruis, Jack Nowell, Dave Ewers and Jonny May having played no Premiership rugby yet this season and Joe Marler, Danny Care and Jonathan Joseph recovering from recent knocks. There were 10 uncapped players in Jones’s 45-man preliminary squad named in the summer; it is reasonable to assume half a dozen could feature in the autumn 32.
Top of the list is probably Mike Williams, the 24-year-old Leicester flanker with a massive appetite for the fray. His work rate is impressive and Jones will also relish his physicality in attack and defence. As Richard Cockerill put it on Sunday evening: “There are still issues around the soft touches in his game but the hard touches are pretty good.”
Williams, though, is a specialist blindside flanker; what England really need is an openside, with Haskell, Clifford and the Ospreys’ Sam Underhill all hors de combat and Jones insistent he will not play Chris Robshaw at No7. Matt Kvesic and Tom Wood are familiar options – how unlucky has Kvesic been? – while Teimana Harrison was summarily replaced during the first half of his Test debut. Will Fraser has been unfortunate with injury, leaving two further contenders: Guy Thompson, whose Wasps side are storming along at the top of the table, and Leicester’s Will Evans, still only 19 but already a junior World Cup winner. The Norwich-born Evans made the preliminary squad so, logically, should be in with a decent chance.
As reserve No8 to Billy Vunipola it looks pretty much a straight fight between Sale’s Josh Beaumont and Nathan Hughes, the Fiji-born Wasp. Beaumont has excellent hands and all-round skills, Hughes brings a touch more power. If Vunipola were to go down with flu the night before the game against the Springboks, Jones would doubtless prefer to field the latter but a good season for the Sharks should also result in Beaumont touring Argentina with England next summer. After that, who knows?
It will be a surprise, too, if we do not hear plenty more about Ellis Genge, Leicester’s new loosehead, who will be a formidable presence once a few rough edges in the Bristolian’s game have been smoothed away. Tommy Taylor, the lively hooker who has joined Wasps from Sale, is another who may ultimately benefit from his club’s fast start, although Dylan Hartley, Jamie George and Luke Cowan-Dickie are currently making him wait. Elsewhere in the pack Alec Hepburn, Don Armand, Sam Jones and Jackson Wray might also be closer to recognition than might be imagined.
Behind the scrum it will be a surprise if Dan Robson does not start to put serious pressure on the No9 incumbents; he is quick-witted and pacy and he and Joe Simpson keep Wasps buzzing. In Tuilagi’s absence, the fitness of Worcester’s Ben Te’o will be of particular interest to Jones; he would love the former rugby league man to be able to take a full part in next week’s get-together in Brighton, assuming he has recovered fully from the concussion he sustained against Gloucester this month.
The Warriors, incidentally, are producing some richly talented young backs: keep an eye out for the electric Perry Humphreys and his 19-year-old team-mate Jamie Shillcock. Henry Purdy at Gloucester, Harry Mallinder at Northampton, Mike Haley at Sale … there is genuinely exciting talent bubbling beneath the surface. The question, as ever, is locating the best balance and picking the right people at the right time. Jones will see England’s injury list as a prime opportunity to promote a likely lad or two.
Tuilagi’s torment
People are quick to sympathise with coaches when Manu Tuilagi is unavailable but how must the player be feeling? The Leicester centre faces at least another six to eight weeks on the sidelines and even if he does recover fully from his latest groin issues, his most recent appearance in an England starting XV was in New Zealand in June 2014. Can he ever be the all-conquering player he was threatening to become?
At 25, time is still on his side and Jonny Wilkinson’s example should deter people from counting the big man out. That said, if you were Warren Gatland, would you instantly pick a Lions centre who has been sidelined so often in the past few years?
And another thing …
Congratulations to Clare Daniels, who became the first woman fourth official in the history of Premiership Rugby at the weekend. The obvious next question, given Helen O’Reilly ran the line in the game between Munster and Zebre in the Pro12 last March, is how long it will take for a woman to take charge of a top men’s league fixture? I suspect it will be sooner rather than later, at which point people will wonder why it took so long. O’Reilly has already refereed in the men’s All-Ireland League, while England’s Sara Cox was her country’s only referee at the Rio Olympics. More power to their whistles.
