Owen Farrell and Dylan Hartley are so laid-back about Eddie Jones’s move to joint leaders that they will wait until a few hours before kick-off against South Africa to decide who will lead the team on to the field, Farrell has revealed.
England were due to meet the match referee Angus Gardner on the eve of the game to ask whether he would be prepared to have two players talk to him about decisions at Twickenham but Farrell insisted he did not expect the switch to co-captains to be an issue on the pitch. “I do not see why two captains cannot be better than one,” said Farrell, whose return to his favoured starting position of fly-half may be shorter than anticipated with Manu Tuilagi withdrawing from the bench after suffering a groin strain in training, leaving no centre cover among the replacements given the wing Chris Ashton was called back in.
“My relationship with Dylan is the same as before. We spend a lot of time during the week and making sure that we are aligned. Come the weekend, our decisions will not be that far away. It will be pretty similar on the field to what it was before. We will speak to the referee to see if he is happy speaking to the two of us but nothing that I do on the field will change. I will try to be myself.
“We have not spoken about who will lead the team on to the field and I imagine it will be a pretty short conversation. It is not something we are precious about.”
Farrell is making only his third start at fly-half, the position he occupies at Saracens, since Jones took over as head coach after the 2015 World Cup. With the inside-centre Ben Te’o making his first start since May, any plan to replace him with Tuilagi, who is expected to be available for selection against New Zealand next week, in the third quarter has been shredded. Farrell is the option at 12 with George Ford covering him on the bench.
“I am no more excited because I am playing at 10,” said Farrell. “You don’t turn into a different player because you change position and I am just focusing on my job. We are equipped to make up for the loss of Manu: I do not think it is anything too serious with him but with his history, he is not the one to risk.”
Tuilagi’s injury, sustained in training on Thursday, added to the injury problems plaguing Jones who has had to replace more than half his pack while being without Anthony Watson and Jonathan Joseph behind the scrum. England’s pack is conceding experience to South Africa with more than half the caps of their eight held by Dylan Hartley but Farrell does not see England as being below strength.
“We will not blame anything on having players missing because we have so much talent in the team,” he said. “We are excited and cannot wait to get out there. We played South Africa in the summer, but they have moved on from then and so have we. It will be a battle up front and they move the ball well. We have to be ready for them.”
Jones, meanwhile, accepts that a number of matches this month will tilt on how players embrace the new tackle height law with a number of red cards shown for high challenges in the opening two months of the campaign.
The teams
England: Daly, Nowell, Slade, Te'o, May, Farrell, Youngs; Hepburn, Hartley, Sinckler, Itoje, Kruis, Shields, Curry, Wilson.
Replacements: George, Moon, Williams, Ewels, Mercer, Care, Ford, Ashton.
South Africa: Willemse, Nkosi, Kriel, De Allende, Dyantyi, Pollard, Van Zyl; Kitshoff, Marx, Malherbe, Etzebeth, PS du Toit, Kolisi, Vermeulen, Whiteley.
Replacements: Mbonambi, T du Toit, Louw, Snyman, De Jager, Papier, Jantjies, Esterhuizen.
Referee: Angus Gardner (Australia)
Kick-off: 3pm GMT
Key clashes
Forwards: Maro Itoje v Eben Etzebeth
Itoje and his second-row partner George Kruis offer the only experience in England’s pack. Itoje needs to reproduce his club form for England against Etzebeth, who seems revitalised after an injury-ravaged year.
Backs: Owen Farrell v Handré Pollard
As he finally gets a shot at 10, Farrell will be hoping for a first win as a fly-half against the Boks. Pollard (pictured) is a solid defender and tactical kicker and has been the first choice under Rassie Erasmus.
Head-to-head
Overall record: England 14 wins, South Africa 25 (plus two draws)
Last five meetings:
2018: South Africa 10-25 England
2018: South Africa 23-12 England
2018: South Africa 42-39 England
2016: England 37-21 South Africa
2014: England 28-31 South Africa
“The players have to learn that it is a new game now,” said Jones. “Each one has to adjust his technique and we talk to them in training if they tackle too high. It is the right way to go because we need to make the game safer. There is always a difficult adjustment period, a price you have to pay to make the game better.”
