The Rugby World Cup 2023 enters the knockout phase this weekend with two crunch quarter-final fixtures on Sunday. England will hope to negotiate an awkward encounter against Fiji before the hosts France take on defending champions South Africa in what promises to be a show-stopping clash on Sunday evening.
England have made two big calls ahead of their quarter-final clash with Fiji as George Ford is relegated to the bench and Freddie Steward misses out entirely. Owen Farrell is preferred at fly-half with the Ford-Farrell 10-12 experiment ditched for now. At full-back, the mercurial Marcus Smith is preferred to Steward as England go in search of some much-needed creativity after their poor performance against Samoa.
France, meanwhile, received a huge boost for their heavyweight Rugby World Cup quarter-final clash against South Africa with talismanic captain Antoine Dupont fit enough to be named as the starting scrum half. Dupont has been sidelined since suffering a fractured cheekbone in France’s pool stage win over Namibia but rejoined the squad last week after undergoing surgery and was cleared by doctors to resume training on Monday.
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