England suffer blow ahead of Scotland clash

TEAM UPDATE: England lock George Martin has been ruled out of Saturday’s Six Nations match against Scotland at Twickenham.

The 23-year-old Leicester forward, due to be on the bench for the Calcutta Cup clash, has been replaced by Bath’s Ted Hill.

Martin started England’s 26-25 second-round win over France but has been managing a longstanding knee problem.

Ollie Chessum took Martin’s place in the second row alongside captain Maro Itoje when England coach Borthwick named his team on Tuesday.

England attack coach Richard Wigglesworth, speaking to reporters at the squad’s Bagshot training base on Thursday, said: “Unfortunately, George Martin had a bit of a setback this morning, so he’s been withdrawn from the 23 and Ted Hill comes on to the bench in his place.

“He had a couple of bangs post the France game that he and we thought were going to be all right.

“But to go and play a Test match, you have to be close to a hundred percent.

“He’s not quite right this morning so we made that decision pre-training. Ted Hill trained fully in that position.”

England – revised: 15 Marcus Smith, 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Ollie Lawrence, 12 Henry Slade, 11 Ollie Sleightholme, 10 Fin Smith, 9 Alex Mitchell, 8 Tom Willis, 7 Ben Earl, 6 Tom Curry, 5 Ollie Chessum, 4 Maro Itoje (captain), 3 Will Stuart, 2 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 1 Ellis Genge.
Replacements: 16 Jamie George, 17 Fin Baxter, 18 Joe Heyes, 19 Ted Hill, 20 Chandler Cunningham-South, 21 Ben Curry, 22 Harry Randall, 23 Elliot Daly.

Date: Saturday, February 22
Venue: Twickenham Stadium, London
Kick-off: 16.45 (16.45 GMT)
Referee: Pierre Brousset (France)
Assistant referees: Andrew Brace (Ireland), Luc Ramos (France)
TMO: Tual Trainini (France)