England to play a Test in Newcastle
NEWS: England will play a home Test match in Newcastle for the first time as the part of four 2019 World Cup warm-up internationals.
England take on Wales (Sunday, August 11) and Ireland (Saturday, August 24) at Twickenham Stadium before heading to the 52 345-capacity St James’ Park in Newcastle for their final home warm-up match against Italy (Friday, September 6) before the squad flies to Tokyo.
Preparations will also see England travel to Cardiff for an away fixture against Wales (Saturday, August 17).
This will be the first England fixture in Newcastle and the first time a match featuring England has taken place outside of Twickenham since the team’s final Rugby World Cup 2015 Pool fixture against Uruguay which was held at Manchester City’s stadium.
England have played in games away from Twickenham before. In 2009, a team captained by Steve Borthwick beat Argentina 37-15 at Old Trafford – the second time England had visited the home of Manchester United – after a 1997 Test there against New Zealand. And in 1998, England played international qualifiers against Italy and the Netherlands in Huddersfield.
“These internationals will be extremely important to the squad’s final preparations before we head out to Japan. It is great news to be able to take England to another part of the country and Newcastle will be fantastic hosts like they were for the matches here in 2015. We will look forward to playing in front of a great northern crowd,” said England head coach Eddie Jones.
Lee Charnley, managing director at Newcastle United, said: “We are excited to have brought another high profile rugby event to St. James’ Park and to the city, and look forward to hosting Eddie Jones and his team before they embark on their trip to Japan.”
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