England are meeting up for a three-day training camp in London to mark the start of their preparations for four home Autumn Nations Series fixtures; England's first Test will be against Argentina on November 6 before meetings with Japan, New Zealand and South Africa at Twickenham Stadium
Monday 26 September 2022 14:22, UK
Manu Tuilagi and Sam Simmonds have been named in Eddie Jones’ 36-man England training squad.
The outfit will begin preparations for their four home Autumn Nations Series fixtures in November during a three-day training camp this weekend.
Jones' squad includes first call-ups for Northampton Saints' Alex Coles and Saracens' Hugh Tizard, both players have previously represented England U20s.
Alongside Tuilagi and Simmonds, there are returns for Ben Youngs, Alex Mitchell, Tom Pearson and David Ribbans.
Danny Care has not been included with Jack van Poortvliet joining Youngs and Mitchell as the scrum-halves. Joe Marchant is also excluded and Jones says he has "some work to do on his game".
This autumn, England will play Argentina in the first of their four matches at Twickenham Stadium on Sunday, November 6. They will then host Japan, followed by New Zealand and South Africa.
"With a year to go to the Rugby World Cup, this is a big opportunity for players to come in and impress," Jones said.
"We want them to show real energy and enthusiasm and that they want to be a part of this massive year.
"It doesn't mean that those who have been left out won't be considered for the Autumn Nations Series matches. We'll be looking at club games, form and fitness and the door is left open for those players.
"We finished the Australia tour well. It was a fantastic experience, particularly for the younger players. We now have to start again, but we'll build on what we've done there and continue that momentum."
Care was recalled to the England squad for the first time in four years for this summer's Tour to Australia.
After starting the first Test and coming off the bench in the second, the 35-year-old was replaced after 37 minutes of the final Test and is not part of this training squad.
"Let's get something right, we didn't pull him off," Jones said. "We've got to change our thinking here, the game of rugby is for 80 minutes with 23 players, that's why we name 23 players.
"We had a plan about that game and if we use that sort of negative language [pulled off the pitch] then we might as well not have a squad of 23.
"So, Danny was taken off at an appropriate time. He did a great job for us and he's another one who has just started playing and we want him to find his form with Harlequins."
A recent addition to Jones' unavailable for selection list was forward Sam Underhill due to him needing to have surgery on a shoulder problem.
He is expected to be out for 12 weeks and will look to return to England's fold for the Six Nations and their build into their Rugby World Cup campaign.
England open their account in France on September 9 against Argentina. The team are in Pool D for the competition alongside Japan, Argentina, Samoa and Chile.
Following England's summer tour to Australia and with the World Cup on the horizon next year, Jones signalled his desire for his team to keep on improving their own style of rugby while being able to adjust to what's going on around them.
"The rugby in the Rugby Championship has been quite fascinating; we've basically got two different games at the moment.
"It's always been like that oscillating between a very unstructured and structured game but at the moment, there seems to be greater differentiation between the really tough set-piece games and really loose games.
"A lot of the things attributed to those games are uncontrollable. So, a big factor for us going into the next 12 months is understanding the strengths of our game and players and making sure we can play that as well as we can.
"Then, developing another sort of game that's able to cope with these uncontrollables, where we have up to five sin-bins in a game, five HIAs, uneven numbers... and we have to play a different sort of game."
"We need to be able to adapt from our game to the game that's going to be played at that time and that's hard to do," he continued.
"There are not too many teams in the world that can do it, in fact, I can't name a team at the moment so there's a great opportunity for us."
Forwards: Ollie Chessum, Alex Coles, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Tom Curry, Ellis Genge, Jamie George, Joe Heyes, Jonny Hill, Lewis Ludlam, Tom Pearson, David Ribbans, Bevan Rodd, Patrick Schickerling, Sam Simmonds, Will Stuart, Hugh Tizard, Billy Vunipola, Mako Vunipola, Jack Walker and Jack Willis.
Backs: Henry Arundell, Joe Cokanasiga, Fraser Dingwall, Owen Farrell, Tommy Freeman, George Furbank, Will Joseph, Jonny May, Alex Mitchell, Jack Nowell, Guy Porter, Marcus Smith, Freddie Steward, Manu Tuilagi, Jack van Poortvliet and Ben Youngs.
Unavailable for selection due to injury: Alfie Barbeary, Nic Dolly, Alex Dombrandt, Charlie Ewels, George Ford, Sam Jeffries, Maro Itoje, Nick Isiekwe, Courtney Lawes, Sam Underhill and Anthony Watson.
