Eddie Jones surprise with centre change
TEAM ANNOUNCEMENT: England has made just one change to their team to play Ireland in Dublin on Saturday.
With Henry Slade pulling up with a calf injury at training on Monday, coach Eddie Jones has decided to tweak his midfield.
Rather than promote regular midfielder Ollie Lawrence from the bench, Jones has opted to put Elliot Daly in at outside centre alongside skipper Owe Farrell in the revamped midfield.
Daly, a regular fullback selection, was out of luck the previous week when Jones made three changes going into last week’s 23-20 home win over France.
Max Malins was given his first-ever Test start in place of the benched Daly.
Daly’s recall is the only alteration to the XV for Dublin and his place on the bench goes to Joe Marchant, who was called into the squad at the start of the week.
His inclusion is in the only bench change.
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“This is our most important game of the tournament and we want to finish well,” Jones said of their final match of the competition.
“We’re anticipating a hard, tough game against Ireland and we’ve picked this team to cope with that.
“We want to take it to Ireland physically and play the rugby we want to play.”
England: 15 Max Malins, 14 Anthony Watson, 13 Elliot Daly, 12 Owen Farrell (captain), 11 Jonny May, 10 George Ford, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Billy Vunipola, 7 Tom Curry, 6 Mark Wilson, 5 Charlie Ewels, 4 Maro Itoje, 3 Kyle Sinckler, 2 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 1 Mako Vunipola.
Replacements: 16 Jamie George, 17 Ellis Genge, 18 Will Stuart, 19 Jonny Hill, 20 Ben Earl, 21 Dan Robson, 22 Ollie Lawrence, 23 Joe Marchant.
Date: Saturday, March 20
Venue: Lansdowne Road, Dublin
Kick-off: 16.45 (16.45 GMT)
Referee: Mathieu Raynal (France)
Assistant referees: Pascal Gauzere (France), Alex Ruiz (France)
TMO: Romain Poite (France)
