Eddie Jones has offered Northampton’s Teimana Harrison a rapid route back into international rugby less than a month after axing the back-row forward from his squad. Harrison and his recalled club-mate Tom Wood, who has been in the Test wilderness for a year, will now contest the No7 jersey against South Africa next month in the absence of several injured rivals.
The 24-year-old Harrison was omitted from the 45-strong elite player squad named less than four weeks ago and hauled off only 31 minutes into England’s most recent Test against Australia in Sydney. Despite Saints’ recent struggles he is now in pole position to start against the Springboks. Jones, who has named six uncapped players in a 33-man squad, is determined to pick a combative pack and improve his team’s “abysmal record” of not beating South Africa since 2006.
Wood, who along with Gloucester’s No8 Ben Morgan and Bath’s Dave Attwood, has not featured since the Stuart Lancaster era, will be invited to restate his credentials in the Algarve next week where Jones is promising another no holds barred training camp despite his team’s recent heavy injury toll. “We won’t be sipping beers in Portugal,” Jones said. “No one likes to see players get injured but we need to train with intensity to beat South Africa. They don’t mind you having the ball and they don’t mind hurting you. We have to make them feel uncomfortable.”
Jones said Harrison earned his reprieve with a forceful display in a losing cause against Castres last weekend. “He’s starting to stop people and he’s starting to put people back when he carries” he said.
Jones continues to view the former captain Chris Robshaw as England’s “best six” and argues that “the way the side is currently set up we don’t need a specialist openside”.
There is no room, either, for Danny Cipriani, Dan Robson, Kyle Eastmond, Paul Hill or Josh Beaumont as Jones looks to increase the depth of his squad against South Africa, Fiji, Argentina and his native Australia. The buildup to the match against Australia on 3 December could be particularly feisty, with Jones quick to seize on last week’s “clown” jibe at his opposite number Michael Cheika by a New Zealand newspaper: “We know the Aussies are talking even now about a [tour] grand slam so they’re obviously full of confidence. They won’t be sending in the clowns.”
It was revealed on Wednesday that Leicester’s recently arrived Australia centre Matt Toomua is facing a six-month layoff with knee ligament damage.
