England coach Steve Borthwick has named a virtually unchanged team to face Australia, with just a positional switch in midfield and two changes to the replacements bench.
Henry Slade starts at inside centre, swapping places with Ollie Lawrence from Saturday’s 24-22 defeat to New Zealand.
Ben Spencer, still seeking his first England win after seven games, will get his second start at scrum-half in Saturday’s clash.
Borthwick has reverted to a traditional 5-3 forwards/backs split on the bench, bringing in prolific Northampton winger Ollie Sleightholme instead of flanker Ben Curry, and Luke Cowan-Dickie instead of Theo Dan as hooker cover for captain Jamie George.
It is the second week in a row that Borthwick has chosen to name his team two days ahead of schedule, with Australia set to name their team on Thursday.
Steve Borthwick, Head coach of England, and Jamie George, Captain of England. (Photo by David Ramos – RFU/The RFU Collection via Getty Images )
Since losing to Australia at Twickenham in the 2015 World Cup pool stage, England have won 10 and lost one of their fixtures. The teams’ last Twickenham meeting was a 32-15 England win in 2021.
Facing Australia is always a massive challenge, and we’ll work diligently this week to ensure we’re physically and tactically prepared to take on the Wallabies,” said Borthwick.
“The passion and energy from the crowd at Allianz Stadium last weekend was absolutely brilliant, from the opening whistle to the final moments, and we can’t wait to be back at home this Saturday.”
Meanwhile, Borthwick has distanced his England set-up from the Eddie Jones regime, which has been damningly portrayed by Danny Care, as he revealed he has an open door policy and encourages collaboration from his players.
Care wrote in his autobiography that everybody was “bloody terrified” of “despot” Jones, the former Wallabies’ mentor who was also England’s head coach from 2015 to 2022.
When asked if he is challenged by his squad, Borthwick said: “There are plenty of times where we have ideas and we discuss them. It’s almost on a daily basis.
“The best players are the best coaches and luckily we have some great, great minds in this group.”
England: Ellis Genge, Jamie George, Will Stuart, Maro Itoje, George Martin, Chandler Cunningham-South, Tom Curry, Ben Earl, Ben Spencer, Marcus Smith, Tommy Freeman, Henry Slade, Ollie Lawrence, Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, George Furbank.
Replacements: Luke Cowan-Dickie, Fin Baxter, Dan Cole, Nick Isiekwe, Alex Dombrandt, Harry Randall, George Ford, Ollie Sleightholme.
© AAP
